TORONTO — Ben Danford takes a few steps into an unfamiliar place on the ice and quickly scans left to right. He receives a pass from a Toronto Marlies teammate near the top of the offensive zone and stops.

The 2024 first-round draft pick sends the puck into a fray of teammates around the net — but an opposition defender scoops the pass into the air, out of harm’s way.

Danford shakes his head and looks eagerly toward Marlies coach Steve Sullivan.

He wants to run the practice drill again. He has a lot to learn.

Thought to be the heir to the Maple Leafs’ defensive zone, Danford is not used to quarterbacking a power play.

“I didn’t play power play in junior,” Danford said. “My coaches always told me that wasn’t my game.”

Danford was drafted as a high-floor, low-ceiling, penalty-killing and offensively limited blueliner. Despite being one of just two Leafs first-round picks in five years, Danford was ranked 12th by The Athletic’s Corey Pronman in his August Leafs prospect rankings.

But as Danford begins his first full year of professional hockey, he knows he’ll get power-play drills again.

“Now,” Danford said, with a grin growing, “I’m lucky they’re giving me the opportunity.”

The new opportunities are by design. In a plan indicative of a broader shift in the Maple Leafs’ thinking when it comes to their prospect pool, the team is attempting to fast-track Danford’s development. If all goes to plan, the approach might even change his NHL future.

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Not sure if this is okay to share but I was blown away by this analysis. Puts the situation into perspective a little.

Justin Bourne breaks down the positives and negatives in McKenna's game with video from last night, as well as possible reasonings for the coaching staff to bench him. Regardless of what the reasoning was, through video, it's pretty clear that any reasoning they had seems to be wrong and if they benched him because they needed veterans to win over giving McKenna opportunities in Game 8 of the season, or because he just "lost McKenna in the shuffle", either way it's pretty brutal on the coaches.

Dreger reported the Rangers have kicked the tires on Stolarz, per this article.

Yesterday I wouldn't have entertained this idea, as the tandem of Bobrovsky and Stolarz gives the Leafs a chance to win most nights.

Today it's evident the Leafs need help on the blue line badly. Two good goalies can only do so much to keep the puck out of the net. The Leafs don't have the assets to acquire the type of d-man they need unless they move Cowan, which I would view as a mistake.

Akhtyamov is a bit green, but showed he's capable in the Calder Cup run. I'd rather rush him under Bobrovsky's mentorship than lose Cowan. I don't know what the return from the Rangers would be, but perhaps there's a threeway trade to be had with the Red Wings to acquire Edvinsson. The Leafs could add OEL as a sweetener.

If the contender and perpetual goalie-ruiner Habs can lean on 21-year old Jacob Fowler after chewing through Dobes, I think the Leafs can lean on a 24 year old Akhtyamov with fellow Russian and future HOFer Bob in his ear. Bob is also reliable, having started 50+ games every season the past decade outside of the Covid-shortened season. What do we think?

What was that 4th goal? How are guys just skating into our zone at 5v5 untouched by our forwards and creating a 2 on 1. Similar thing happened in Colorado and a bunch of people piled on Rielly who I thought actually played pretty well last night. Sitting back and defending a lead is one thing. Letting the opposition fly through the neutral zone untouched/unimpeded is another....

My younger brothers 30th birthday was a few weeks ago and I decided to take him to a leafs game of his choice. Leafs have been something we've always bonded over and we've never been to a game together. This was also the second time in my life going to support my childhood hockey club because it's always just been way too expensive.

I also splurged and got him a premium Mckenna jersey, since we were both super excited to see him play.

I realize going to any sporting event and basing your experience on the outcome of the game is not a realistic expectation.

What was negative was the view, the big screen we were facing was broken, so every replay wasn't visible and you couldn't see anything.

Second was Hiller refusing to play Mckenna, I literally couldn't believe it. He's 18 and going to make mistakes especially less then 10 games into his NHL career. In a game where the players looked tired and Tavares got Injured, he decided to be stubborn and not play the rookie.

I've never wanted to be reimbursed or get my money back going to any sporting event in my entire life. I have a lack for words to describe what I witnessed last night, and it was an incredibly quiet subway ride home.

Marchenko played great and was a highlight of the entire thing, the only other positives were the crowd being surprisingly loud and the arena was covered in blue and white jerseys everywhere, not as many suits as I always read about on reddit and everywhere else.

I'll always be a leaf fan, and I should've known better without a doubt, but this was more than just unfortunate I don't think I'll be going to another game anytime soon.

Alright so Jimbo had a massive lapse in judgement last night. Best we can hope for is he can't sit down until his next match up with the NYI's because he got chewed up inside and out. Time to move onward and upwards with YOUR expectations of how tomorrow nights game unfolds.

Sens Win! Panthers Win! Sabres Win! Lightning Win! Red Wings Win! Oh whats that you say? The leafs new guy got a hatrick? surely they won right? Oh he shortened the bench, parked the bus and then played the guys he literally spammed the entire 3rd period in OT and they lost because they were already gassed from playing most of the minutes in P3?? Great Coaching there buddy, Bench McKenna and play Sissons in OT. and I have to endure all my non leafs fan friends rubbing it in... Only thing that can save this night is Dodgers getting swept

Going through money pucks xgf% cumulative totals for the leafs since 2008 and there’s been a pretty interesting trend.

Since 2008/09 every time the leafs ended the season above 50% they made the playoffs and everytime they fell below 50% they missed. There were two exceptions to this rule. The first was in 2009/10 season where they were well above 50% all season and ended with 53.9% cumulative xgf% and missed the playoffs. The second was in 2012/13 where they were below 50% all season and ended at 44% cumulative. Technically in the 2024/25 season the ended at 49.8% but that was the lowest they fell all season and stayed above 50%.

So why does this matter? Well currently the leafs are sitting at 42.9% cumulative for the current season. There other advanced numbers largely suggest they are a bottom 5-10 team and are actually outperforming a bit right now. Sure some of that has to do with above average shooting talent like Matthews, Nylander and Marchenko. But it can’t be denied that xgf% has been the best identifier of team success over the last 2 decades.

Am I a doomer? Not really, but I do trust what the stats are saying and the eye test confirms some of it. The leafs give up too many high danger chances and don’t create much of their own. All their losses have been 1 goal games which is a positive to take. However it’s also important to note that in a lot of those games they weren’t expected to score that many goals and a lot of it had to do with the shooting skill of Nylander and Matthews and the eye test certainly confirms a lot of that.

So what does this all mean? Well the team is mostly overhauled and working under new systems. It’s really early in the season and perfectly normal to see large swings in cumulative xgf% until more games are played. And for the doomers theres a lot of hockey to be played still and the team will work the kinks out. To those who are saying everything is fine? Well not exactly, there’s legitimate reason for concern like the fact that the leafs advanced stats are on par with Vancouver, Philly and Calgary. The Atlantic is going to be really competitive and playing like they currently are will not result in success in this division. Currently sitting at 1 point of 6 vs Atlantic teams which is very alarming. A lot of season, sure but without a significant turn around soon especially against division rivals, the task may be too hard to overcome.

Source: MoneyPuck

They’re all saying that Hiller is genuinely just like this as a coach. Crazy how the vibes got killed after tonight’s game

Not losing hope since we’re only in game 8 but damn

We’re done with that style of play in the 90’s. We’re in 2026, play your first overall pick that our franchise basically got gifted for no reason

These mentality coaches sometimes kill the development of these young players. Look at Michkov for example

Obviously not going to try and spin that awful third period into something positive but I think we gotta look at these first 8 games as a whole.

6 of our first 8 opponents were playoff teams last year and clearly none of them have taken a step back to start this year. (Our next 4 are against teams that missed the playoffs so we definitely have to take those points).

We haven’t lost a game by more than a goal (which I get also makes things more frustrating)

The big guys look good upfront (couldn’t say that last year) and I think Bob has gotten better every game.

If Jim keeps his head on straight and we limit the turnovers I think we’ll have a nice 4 game stretch coming up. Goodnight and GLG 💙.

Looking at the 2nd Buffalo Goal. It seems instead of going off for a change like his linemates did he pressured the puck carrier and then trailed into the defensive zone for the goal.

Is that it?

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