Latest news with #PhilKessel
National Post
22-07-2025
- Sport
- National Post
Dakota Joshua takes fellow cancer survivor Phil Kessel's No. 81
Article content But in asking for it, the new left winger isn't thinking of Phil Kessel the enigmatic scorer as much as a fellow testicular cancer survivor. Article content Article content 'I love the mojo there,' Joshua told the Sun on Tuesday when confirming he'll wear his familiar digits from the Vancouver Canucks. 'I knew his story and looking forward to playing a long time here like Kessel did.' Article content Kessel's bout with the disease was with the Boston Bruins, before he led Toronto in points six consecutive seasons up to 2015. Joshua was diagnosed early last season, had a tumour removed and made it back to play 57 games. But it affected many aspects of his play and while his offensive numbers slipped, the Canucks missed the playoffs and the term and burden of Joshua's contract ($3.25 million for three more years) were part of a change in direction for that club. Article content 'For sure it puts your life in perspective,' Joshua said of his serious medical issue. 'The biggest takeaway is that anything can happen to you, so make the most of (life). But after coming out the other side, I'm stronger as a person. It makes you confident you can get through anything.' Article content Joshua was traded here a week ago for a fourth-round pick in 2028. He was briefly in the Leaf orbit as a 2014 draft selection at 128th overall, the year William Nylander went eighth. Article content Joshua stayed at home at Dearborn, Mich., for that draft in Philadelphia, but did come to a couple of developmental camps where at 6-foot-3 and 206 pounds, he certainly garnered attention. Article content But the Leafs were undergoing a huge changing of the guard and he didn't see a future in Hogtown – at least then. Article content 'Being drafted by the Leafs was very special, a big moment in my career. It didn't work out (the Ohio State grad was traded to St. Louis for future considerations), a mix of not being the right fit and a better opportunity with the Blues. Article content 'But I had fun at Toronto's camps and coming here today (to the Ford Centre practice facility) it was a little familiar to me.' Article content The 29-year-old met with general manager Brad Treliving, the training and equipment staff and caught up with some Leafs who are already busy with summer training. He says there was no discussion of exactly where he'll fit in on left wing, likely in the bottom six once September camp begins. Article content 'Today was moreso an introduction, getting back in the building and Brad telling me to have a good summer so I can hit the ground running in a couple of months.' Article content Since the trade, the sports networks have flooded their Leaf segments with Joshua's fights, including one with Ottawa's Brady Tkachuk, one of Toronto great nemeses, another a couple of years ago with Leaf defender Mark Giordano just before he turned 40. Article content Giordano, now a member of the Leafs' development staff, said at the time he had second thoughts once he saw how big Joshua was. Article content 'I didn't see Mark today, but I'm sure when I do, we'll have a few laughs about it,' Joshua said.
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Penguins' rebuild is painful, but it might just be perfectly timed
The Athletic has live coverage of NHL free agency. PITTSBURGH — July 1 used to be a day of great celebration for Pittsburgh Penguins fans, as their favorite team signed or traded for big names to help their Stanley Cup push for the better part of two decades. Memorably, Phil Kessel joined the Penguins 10 years ago today. Those were the days. Advertisement These most certainly are not the days, unless signing Parker Wotherspoon revs your engine. But they are necessary days. The Penguins aren't going to be very good in 2025-26. On paper, they're one Sidney Crosby injury away from being one of the five worst teams in the NHL. They might be headed in that direction even if Crosby stays healthy and continues to defy age. The great philosopher Wayne Campbell long ago gave us this line: 'It's like coming home on Friday night and doing your homework right away so that your Saturday night is free to just party.' That pretty much sums it up. Right now in Pittsburgh, it's 8 p.m. on a Friday. You aren't out partying, eating a nice dinner or playing video games — or even reading a fulfilling book. You're not at the mall or wherever kids have fun these days. No, you're in your bedroom by yourself, doing that chemistry homework. Your mom took your phone away for the night. No human contact. Just you and your homework. It's miserable. It's boring. It feels like it'll never end. You're missing out. But Saturday is coming. And it might be a little sweeter than you might have imagined. The Penguins have made many mistakes in the past few years, and there's enough blame to go around. Jim Rutherford is in the Hockey Hall of Fame for a reason, but some of his decisions in the post-Stanley Cup years certainly didn't work out. Any GM would've picked Matt Murray over Marc-Andre Fleury, but it failed. Ron Hextall? Well, not everything he did was wrong, believe it or not, but he did plenty of damage. I'm hardly going to bore you with the details. The first few months of the Kyle Dubas era gave us Ryan Graves, Erik Karlsson, Noel Acciari, five more years of Tristan Jarry and six more weeks of winter. To Dubas' credit, he realized fairly quickly that he made mistakes in the summer of 2023 and it was time to try something new. We're 18 months into that rebuild. It might not seem like it, but he has made great progress. The Penguins have about 10 to 12 legitimately good prospects in their system now. When Dubas took over, they had maybe two or three. Advertisement Now, suddenly, the Penguins hold a considerable amount of leverage. They just need to be patient for a little longer, and then it could be party time. Let's consider what's going on around the league and specifically with the Penguins: • The salary cap is going way up. Predictably, teams are spending that extra money without much thought. Average defensemen are signing long deals for $5 million a year. • Almost every team thinks it's good or has a chance to be good next season. Maybe they're right. That's the beauty of parity. • By contrast, the Penguins know full well they aren't good and likely won't be next season. Though it's never fun to look in the mirror and not like what you see, at least Dubas is being honest about what he sees in the current roster. You may hate that. You may want him to go on a spending spree in hopes of a miracle season. But Dubas knows better. He knows the odds of that are extremely minimal. • The 2026 NHL Draft class, by all accounts, is superb. The Penguins are almost certainly going to get a high first-round pick next June. They also have three second-round picks and two third-round picks in the draft. • It's becoming clearer that either Bryan Rust or Rickard Rakell — perhaps both — are going to be traded before the deadline in March. Each player might bring the Penguins a first-round pick in that mighty 2026 draft. • Some teams are said to be terrified of losing a 2026 first-round draft pick. Fair enough. That just means those teams, if they want to improve, will have to part with top-notch prospects or top-tier young NHL players they ordinarily would not trade. Any way you look at this, the Penguins win. They are one of the only sellers in the league, so they have a serious opportunity. It's not just about all of those draft picks and prospects in their very near future. Advertisement Yes, the Penguins are going to enjoy a substantial wave of young talent in the coming years, but notice how patient Dubas is right now. Jokes aside, the Wotherspoon signing was decent business. Two years at a $1 million cap hit for a young third-pairing defenseman is fine. They also made modest signings in bringing back Philip Tomasino and Connor Dewar on affordable one-year contracts. And because of that type of restraint, the Penguins are going to have serious money to spend soon. Evgeni Malkin, Acciari, Kevin Hayes, Danton Heinen, Blake Lizotte, Connor Clifton and Ryan Shea are off the books after this coming season. Do you think any of them will be around when the Penguins contend again? Of course not. By next July 1, the Penguins are scheduled to have $50 million in cap space. That number will go down, but you get the point. By then, teams will have slowed their spending frenzies because they'll realize you don't find great value in free agency. Trade costs will go down — relatively speaking — because teams will need to shed salary after spending so frivolously. But not the Penguins, who by then will have a group of talented, cheap, young players ready to make their mark and will be able to make a huge dent in free agency. They also won't be desperate because Dubas has a plan: play the long game. As they so often have done before, the Penguins picked a good time to rebuild. Gavin McKenna is out there among the many other outrageously gifted prospects. There's no way around it: These are tough times for the Penguins and their fans. They might bottom out next season. But then you look around the NHL today and see all of the stupid money being spent. The Penguins have needed to rebuild for a long time. They finally are, and they may have picked an ideal time to do it. Saturday night might be a couple of years away, but it's coming. Time to do some homework. (Photo of Parker Wotherspoon: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Grading Bruins' 2025 NHL Draft class
The post Grading Bruins' 2025 NHL Draft class appeared first on ClutchPoints. The 2025 NHL Draft has concluded, and the immediate discussions around each class can begin. The Boston Bruins were one of the more intriguing teams entering the draft, given their draft position. For the first time since 2010, Boston owned a top-10 pick in the NHL Draft. Advertisement The Bruins had success with their last two top-10 picks prior to Friday night. Boston drafted Tyler Seguin in 2010 and Phil Kessel in the 2006 draft. Kessel went on to the Toronto Maple Leafs through trade, which landed them the picks used for Seguin and defenseman Dougie Hamilton. Seguin was traded in 2013, but helped them win a Stanley Cup in 2011. Boston hopes the players selected remain with the team for a lot longer than a few years. They are looking to retool their roster, and they may have done so in the 2025 NHL Draft. Let's take a deeper look at their class and hand the Bruins an initial grade for their haul. Bruins land potential franchise cornerstone The Boston Bruins entered the 2025 NHL Draft needing an impact player down the middle. Their center depth across the entire organization was rather barren. Boston had to do something to change this. Thankfully, the impact player they were seeking fell right into their lap. Advertisement The Bruins made James Hagens the seventh-overall pick in the draft. ClutchPoints graded this selection an A, and for good reason. Hagens is a potential franchise cornerstone for Boston to build around. He is the sort of center prospect they've lacked since the days of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Hagens is not the prototypical Bruins player. He isn't a bang-and-crash forward who plays with an incredible edge. He's certainly no shrinking violet. But he relies a ton on the high-end skill that certainly could have made him the top pick in this draft. The Bruins traded Seguin in part because of his reliance on skill. It's hard to imagine this happens to Hagens, though. The organization is happy to have the Boston College prospect. And he's embraced the organization with open arms. It's as close to a perfect match as one can get in the NHL Draft. Boston overhauls center depth Kirby Lee-Imagn Images Hagens is not the only notable center Boston picked up in the 2025 NHL Draft. In fact, he isn't the only one with top-six potential. Boston's second pick — 51st overall — was American center William Moore. Some had him pegged as a potential first-round pick at times this season. Advertisement A couple years ago, Moore falling out of the first round would've been a bold statement. However, he never made a significant leap while with the US National Team Development Program. He flashed impressive skill and skating ability, as well as some power elements. However, he struggled to put all of this together. Moore brings positional versatility to the table, as he can play on the wing. However, there's a good chance he sticks down the middle. If he can string everything together, he has the makings of a solid No. 2 center who crashes the net and generates offense in multiple ways. Boston's final two picks were also centers. Cole Chandler went in the fifth round, while Kirill Yemelyanov was a sixth-round selection. With this, the Bruins added four centers to their prospect pipeline, giving them more depth than they've had in recent seasons. Later rounds are hit and miss Boston's decisions in the later rounds do cast a shadow over the quality of this class. Chandler and Yemelyanov are perfect examples of the hit-and-miss nature of these final selections, in fact. Chandler provided some secondary offense for the Shawinigan Cataractes of the QMJHL this year. However, he is primarily a defense-first forward who may struggle to translate his offense to the NHL. Advertisement Yemelyanov, meanwhile, may be a legitimate steal. He shined in the MHL playoffs with the Loko Yaroslavl junior team. This helped propel him up draft boards in a major way. Some evaluators had a third-round grade on him. He has the tools to make it at the NHL level. And he does play an annoying, physical brand of hockey that Bruins fans can appreciate. Their other late-round selections don't carry the same value. Liam Pettersson and Vashek Richards-Blanar were major reaches. In fact, many evaluators didn't have Richards-Blanar coming close to being drafted. Cole Simpson is a fine selection for where he went, though. Overall, it's going to take some work for these late-round selections to make any sort of noise in the NHL. Grades and final thoughts The Boston Bruins receive a good grade for their 2025 NHL Draft class. The selections of Hagens and Moore carry this grade on their own for the most part. However, the selections of Simpson and Yemelyanov help keep it toward the high end of the league. In saying this, Boston took some major gambles on players that may never pan out. Advertisement Bruins draft grade: B+ Best pick: James Hagens – Round 1, Pick 7 Worst pick: Vashek Richards-Blanar – Round 4, Pick 100 Most intriguing: Kirill Yemelyanov – Round 6, Pick 165 Related: Bruins' James Hagens welcomed to Boston by Adam Sandler at NHL Draft Related: Meet James Hagens, Bruins' No. 7 in the 2025 NHL Draft
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
'Not Always Necessarily The Best Thing': Thriving With Oilers Kasperi Kapanen Reflects On Pressure-Filled Maple Leafs Media Experience
'Not Always Necessarily The Best Thing': Thriving With Oilers Kasperi Kapanen Reflects On Pressure-Filled Maple Leafs Media Experience Edmonton Oilers forward Kasperi Kapanen is among many former Toronto Maple Leafs performing strongly during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and ahead of the Stanley Cup Final, he was asked about his tenure in Toronto. 'Media presence is big there and not always necessarily the best thing, but it does prepare you for the future,' Kapanen told reporters, including TSN's Mark Masters. 'Coming to Edmonton, with it being in Canada, I was used to it. But I think you guys in Toronto, it's still on another level." Advertisement Kapanen's tenure with the Maple Leafs was an interesting one. A key piece in a trade that saw the Leafs deal Phil Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins, expectations were high for the 22nd pick in the 2014 NHL Draft. It wasn't until the 2018-19 season that Kapanen broke out, scoring 20 goals and adding 24 assists in 78 games. Before that, however, he had already scored a significant playoff overtime goal against the Washington Capitals in 2017. After 2018-19, however, Kapanen's production with the Leafs not only began to wane, but he was also benched after sleeping in and being late for a practice. Kapanen was dealt back to Pittsburgh in 2020, a move that was partly due to his play but also a means of shedding salary. After a few seasons with the Penguins, questions about his defensive ability began to permeate, putting his overall reliability into question. His struggles culminated in being placed on waivers in February 2023. Later that year, he was convicted of aggravated DUI in Finland and opened up about his struggles with alcohol. Report: Kapanen suspected of aggravated drunk driving Report: Kapanen suspected of aggravated drunk driving ST. LOUIS -- With training camp less than two weeks away, the last thing the St. Louis Blues want to deal with is an off-ice issue. Advertisement The Blues re-signed Kapanen to a one-year, $1 million deal, but he again struggled with the same on-ice issues that have plagued his career. He was placed on waivers and claimed by the Edmonton Oilers. Although he sat out all of Round 1, Kapanen has since been a key contributor, including scoring the overtime Game 5 clinching goal against the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2. In three games against the Dallas Stars, Kapanen maintained strong forechecking and penalty-kill contributions. This was very much Kapanen's last chance to show he belonged in the NHL. When it has mattered the most, he has shown that he can play the way teams need him to for sustained success. Maple Leafs Invite Knights Goaltender Austin Elliott To Training Camp After Memorial Cup Title Maple Leafs Invite Knights Goaltender Austin Elliott To Training Camp After Memorial Cup Title London Knights goaltender Austin Elliott has a ticket to an NHL training camp this fall. 'I'll Be Ready For Camp': Why Maple Leafs Prospect Easton Cowan Believes He's Prepared For The NHL After Memorial Cup Win 'I'll Be Ready For Camp': Why Maple Leafs Prospect Easton Cowan Believes He's Prepared For The NHL After Memorial Cup Win Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan has his eyes peeled for the NHL next season. Maple Leafs Hire Derek Lalonde As Assistant Coach: What He Brings To Toronto's Bench Maple Leafs Hire Derek Lalonde As Assistant Coach: What He Brings To Toronto's Bench The Toronto Maple Leafs officially announced on Friday the addition of Derek Lalonde to their coaching staff as an assistant. This move filled a vacancy on head coach Craig Berube's staff after associate coach Lane Lambert departed to become the Seattle Kraken's new bench boss. Stay updated with the most interesting Maple Leafs stories, analysis, breaking news and more! Tap the star to add us to your favorites on Google News to never miss a story.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Ten key moments that defined the Maple Leafs' Brendan Shanahan era
After 11 years as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan will not return next season. On Thursday, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment announced his contract would not be renewed. Shanahan leaves in his wake several memorable moments and key decisions that still impact the team on and off the ice. Some teams flirt with rebuilds. Not Shanahan. He spotted a weed in the grass and uprooted the entire lawn. Trading the two pillars of the team in 2015 and 2016 — Phil Kessel and captain Dion Phaneuf — sent a clear message that the Leafs would be overhauled beyond the ice. And then, by firing the coaching staff and members of the scouting staff and PR department, Shanahan ensured an entirely new culture was created in Toronto. It was a culture he would be the mastermind of. Overhauling so many aspects of the organization meant Shanahan would oversee so much of how the organization operated, including in his final season in Toronto. Advertisement Shanahan hired one of the NHL's most in-demand coaches in May 2015 when the promise of talent in Toronto was just that. Shanahan convinced Mike Babcock of that promise. 'I'm proud of (Shanahan). I'm proud that he dreamt big,' then-Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president and CEO Tim Leiweke said at the time. 'He got the big whale.' Though Babcock's tenure in Toronto was littered with a lack of postseason success and off-ice issues that eventually garnered headlines, Shanahan's hiring of Babcock likely changed the perception of the Leafs league-wide. Under Shanahan, they were serious about turning things around and doing so rather quickly. With Babcock, Shanahan quickly raised the expectations of what the Leafs could be capable of. Those expectations were only amplified throughout his tenure. The Leafs had the No. 4 pick in the 2015 NHL Draft. It would become a critical piece to their rebuild under Shanahan. Babcock looked ahead and wanted to consider drafting a defenceman. He saw the team's pipeline and knew a sizeable puck-mover could put the Leafs in a more advantageous place. Shanahan, among others, pulled for smallish winger Mitch Marner; his skill was undeniable. And the following year, there was (virtually) no debate: Auston Matthews would be the team's No. 1 pick, with Shanahan himself being the team's representative at the draft lottery. Shanahan would tie himself to these two players and the future of the organization in a remarkable way. He believed they would help deliver playoff success, regardless of their shortcomings. Shanahan bet on them and, essentially, his vision. No two players would ever be more aligned with Shanahan's turnaround of the organization and, just as much, his inability to deliver meaningful playoff success. Shanahan went old-school by hiring seasoned executive Lou Lamoriello in 2015. Lamoriello was in Toronto for only three seasons, but his work was tidy: He expedited the Leafs' rebuild by flipping several veterans for an impressive haul of draft picks. He held firm on (some) contract negotiations, especially with some of the eventual Leafs core. It was another step from Shanahan to legitimize the organization. And though not every Lamoriello signing benefited the team long-term (Nikita Zaitsev played for three teams throughout his perplexing seven-year deal), he worked with Shanahan to establish an oft-rigid way of dealing with player contracts. You can debate Lamoriello's vision for the on-ice product. But in hindsight, it's worth wondering what several later high-profile Leafs contract extensions might have looked like with Lamoriello as GM. Of course, Lamoriello didn't remain as GM. In 2018, Shanahan promoted then-32-year-old Kyle Dubas from assistant general manager to general manager, giving Dubas his first job as a top NHL executive. Dubas has previously been hired by the OHL's Soo Greyhounds as GM at just 25. Shanahan wanted his organization to be progressive, and Dubas would become the poster boy for that approach. Giving Dubas the reins over fellow assistant general manager Mark Hunter would end up becoming Shanahan's defining move in Toronto. Advertisement 'As I got to see him evolve and grow here with the Maple Leafs, he was absolutely an option that I didn't want to let go of,' Shanahan said when Dubas was hired. Dubas had a clear vision for a skill-based team that often eschewed typical hockey norms. He swung for the fences, including signing eventual captain John Tavares, trading for veteran defenceman Jake Muzzin and making impressive adds at the 2023 deadline such as Ryan O'Reilly. Some of Dubas' contract decisions are difficult to swallow, especially when viewed through the lens of where this team is right now. Seeing Zach Hyman walk out of Toronto and sign with the Edmonton Oilers and continually perform in the playoffs for a digestible $5.5 million cap hit will continue to sting. All in all, the Leafs still only moved out of the first round of the playoffs once under Dubas' watch. Not every trade that occurred under Dubas' watch can be connected to Shanahan. But only the most notable of trades changed the course of the team. Shanahan announced late in the 2014-15 season that 2009 No. 7 NHL draft pick Kadri would be a healthy scratch for the next two games. The emerging centre had overslept and missed a team meeting. Shanahan implied this was not an isolated incident. 'There's a history here,' Shanahan said at the time. 'Incidents like this won't be tolerated.' So, was it a huge surprise when Kadri was dealt on July 1, 2019, after being suspended in back-to-back playoff years? Maybe not. Was the return of Tyson Barrie and Alex Kerfoot surprising and ultimately disappointing? No question. The Leafs would end up coveting a third-line centre of Kadri's calibre and skill set for years afterwards, and Barrie — the centrepiece of the deal — would play a single season in Toronto. Kadri never wanted to leave Toronto and would go on to play a vital role on a Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche team in 2022. The Leafs would continually lack players with Kadri's competitiveness and physicality in the playoffs. Moving him became the trade that hurt them the most under Shanahan. Advertisement 'For everyone that thought I was a liability in the playoffs, you can kiss my ass,' Kadri said after winning the Stanley Cup. Babcock's legacy in Toronto has since been tarnished due to off-ice issues. Shanahan and Dubas decided to move on from the veteran coach. And Sheldon Keefe deserved the chance to try his hand with the Leafs, given his Calder Cup win in the AHL. Keefe had a vision for the Leafs that was aligned with Dubas'. His on-ice plan fit the skill set of the Leafs core. Keefe is, and will likely continue to be, a good NHL coach. But keeping Keefe after his team capitulated in the first round of the 2021 playoffs and blew a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens was a poor decision in hindsight. How could the Leafs brass tolerate that kind of embarrassing series loss? It's a question that Shanahan continued to leave unanswered for years afterwards. Even the most hardened of journalists who had covered the Leafs for a generation had never been to a press conference like the one Shanahan held on May 19, 2023. Shanahan cut Dubas loose that Friday after back-and-forth negotiations and Dubas expressing in a season-end press conference, in his own way, that he had reservations about continuing as Leafs general manager. 'I think it requires me to have a full family discussion,' Dubas said. Dubas wanted a more attractive compensation package. Shanahan refused to have uncertainty in his front office. He then explained, without much room for misinterpretation, his side of events in a revealing and resolute press conference. Shanahan ditched the platitudes. He said that one email from Dubas quickly changed what he thought was best for the team. 'At that point, if I'm being honest, I had gotten to a different place about how I felt about the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs and what was best,' Shanahan said during that press conference. Dubas would never really explain his side of the story publicly. Shanahan had said enough to keep many shaking their heads anyway. It was a clear reminder of who was still in charge of the Maple Leafs. From inexperienced and progressive on the ice to uber-experienced and battle-hardened in play, Shanahan's swing in his final two general manager hires dramatically altered the look of the Leafs. Shanahan wanted experience in his next GM. He got it in Brad Treliving, who began working in an NHL front office back in 2007. Dubas and Treliving, hired in May 2023, had visions for the on-ice product that could not have been more different. Advertisement Treliving shed longstanding, skilled Leafs defenders in favour of size and length around the goal. He wanted his team to be nastier — certainly nastier than the teams Dubas constructed. And in doing so, Shanahan would only hope that jamming his skilled core forwards into Treliving's vision would work. Treliving was pivotal to the hire of new coach Craig Berube, who further cemented the Leafs' new heavy, north-south game. So far, the same Leafs team has only gotten as far in the playoffs as Dubas' best team. After watching countless Leafs games at Scotiabank Arena from one of the many staff boxes, fans had grown accustomed to one of Shanahan's preferred mid-game looks: he would sit with his chin calmly resting on his hand, his eyes often darting up at the massive screen over the ice to double-check replays. Shanahan always projected an unruffled appearance mid-game, no matter how many times his team was vanquished in the playoffs. He was resolute in his belief that by staying the course, his core would break through. 'We will not be making changes just simply for the sake of saying that we made changes,' Shanahan said after the Leafs lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2022. Leafs grew weary of that sentiment. And so, even as Shanahan sat calmly trying to digest his team losing in embarrassing fashion in Game 7 of the second round this year, fans let their disgust out: they booed relentlessly, they raised middle fingers and threw jerseys on the ice. When the broadcast cameras panned to a serene but contemplative Shanahan, it was easy to imagine who fans might be directing their vitriol at. Shanahan had allowed the core to stay in place amidst nearly a decade of continued playoff losses. His plan to rebuild the Leafs had merit. It changed the team for likely a generation. But under his watch, the Leafs ultimately fell short when it mattered. When Shanhan looked up at the scoreboard one last time and saw the Leafs down 6-1 in a Game 7, he might have realized that too.
