With the Flyers defeating the Canadiens last night, they won their series and advanced to the next round. The Eastern Conference now has the next round of matchups all set:

  • Philadelphia Flyers vs New York Islanders
  • Tampa Bay Lightning vs Boston Bruins/

Those should both be pretty interesting series, especially because they’re both divisional matchups. The Flyers-Isles series should be quite physical, but also probably a bit defensive and boring otherwise. The goalies might be what decides it in the end. Don’t believe me? We know the Isles are boring and defensive, and the Flyers.... well....

As for the Western Conference, Vancouver played the role of the Harlem Globetrotters against the defending Stanley Cup Champions...

The Canucks won the series 4-2, and now the Western matchups are set as such:

  • Colorado Avalanche vs Dallas Stars
  • Vegas Golden Knights vs Vancouver Canucks/

The Avalanche vs Stars should be a pretty fascinating series as far extreme offense vs extreme defense.

MIKE DINGLEBURY FALLOUT

Of course, the other big news in the hockey world was about Mike Milbury showing his ass for the third or fourth time since the NHL resumed games. Let’s run through the list:

  • Made it seem like Muzzin was faking his injury.
  • Called out Tuukka Rask for leaving the season to be with his wife, and eventually we learned his child may have had an emergency health scare.
  • Compared the empty NHL arenas without fans to beer league hockey or women’s hockey games.
  • Made that bizarre tweet about the Space Needle/CN Tower where I’d put money on him being drunk as hell/

Now this, which actually makes it FIVE incidents! If you’re not familiar with what happened, I assume that means you don’t use Twitter, so here’s a video of what he said. Today, we got some fallout.

First, in a genuinely surprising move, the NHL made a public statement condemning it. Now this might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that they’re basically calling out their broadcast partner — NBC — for their employee. Their broadcast partner that might be bidding on a new contract with the NHL very soon.

Then NBC and Milbury himself responded not long after:

Then, news broke that Milbury was at least pulled from last night’s broadcast between the Flyers and Habs.

I think Alan (@loserpoints), the former head of Raw Charge, wrote one of the better looks at this situation: https://scraps.substack.com/p/get-mike-milbury-off-my-television

“Hey finally we can play some fuckin hockey with the boys without all these broads around, eh?” No, asshole. That’s a you problem. The rest of us want to be with our families. And for a lot of these players, the idea of having to choose between being with their families or fulfilling their lifelong dream must be a devastating choice. Milbury sounds like a caricature of a guy from the 1950s. It’s 2020! Get this guy off my television.

30 teams & 30 cap crunches: Who can the Leafs find to trade with | by Katya

Systems Analysis: Fixing the Toronto Maple Leafs Power Play | a great article by Kevin Papetti at MLHS

The Chopping Block Roundtable Part One: Which Leafs Players Should Go? | by TLN

Kasperi Kapanen trade rumours: so hot right now...

AROUND THE HOCKEY WORLD

A top player agent called out the NHL, specifically their DoPS, for how they’re handling discipline (read: poorly).

Apparently the Flames are already shopping Johnny Gaudreau, according to known mouthpiece for Flames ownership Eric Francis: https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/flames-gaudreau-likely-trade-candidate-recent-playoff-stumble/

Stupid Columbus will have more stupid cap space to make their stupid team better.

Maybe they can afford Taylor Hall!

Because the Coyotes might not be able to...

So hear me out... what if the Leafs trade Hyman, Kapanen, Johnsson, Kerfoot, Dermott and Holl either to get Gaudreau or to get assets for him, then use the rest of the space to sign Hall!

Hall — Matthews — Marner

Gaudreau — Tavares — Nylander

Robertson — Engvall — Mikheyev

Barabanov — Brooks — Malgin

And while we’re at it, Dubas will give us all a pony.

If you could make Dubas take either player, who would it be?

Johnny Gaudreau34
Taylor Hall78
Beating Mike Milbury with his own shoe108
From The Branches