Simmons Says: Maple Leafs’ surge without William Nylander says plenty about a murky Eastern Conference

This has been more than a strange half-season for the Maple Leafs.

Mitch Marner left for Vegas and they have more regular-season wins than the Golden Knights heading into Saturday night.
William Nylander, still Toronto’s leading point-getter, has been hurt a few times, and the Leafs’ record without him has been superb. In 10 games without their most electric forward, the Leafs have gone 6-1-3. And the three-time 40-goal scorer, Nylander, has the highest shooting percentage of his career and may end up with the lowest number of goals scored. Trying explaining that one to your stats friends.
Craig Berube has gone from confident to almost fired, to team falling apart, to seemingly having solved this mess in just more than 40 games. He looked like the wrong man for the job in October and November and now the team is playing his kind of hockey and succeeding in the muddle of the goo that is the Eastern Conference.

Sometimes you can’t explain hockey. The ultimate team sport doesn’t always compute to individual performance. Logically, you shouldn’t be better without your best players. But in this recent streak with Nylander out the previous six games, the Leafs haven’t lost in regulation time.

Toronto also played most of the first half of the NHL season without its top right-side defencemen and have gone beyond the halfway point — and who knows how much farther — without having their No. 1 and No. 2 goaltenders dressed for the same game.

Heading into Hockey Night In Canada against the Vancouver Canucks in a season that has appeared both dreadful and encouraging, the Leafs are on pace for 93 points, currently two points out of a playoff spot.

The Red Wings, Flyers, Islanders and Penguins are in playoff positions right now — but will they be at the end of the season?

And will the Leafs? Will the Florida Panthers? Will the Buffalo Sabres finally find a way? Will the New Jersey Devils stop beating themselves? Can the Ottawa Senators get a save or two, get off social media and corral the occasional win?

Can anyone accurately predict the eight playoff teams in the East? And make sense of a season that doesn’t seem to make sense across the board?

THIS AND THAT

I started thinking about this a lot, after Auston Matthews passed Mats Sundin for the most goals in Leafs history: Who is the greatest player in Leafs history? Dave Keon was anointed that spot when the Leafs named their all-time team in 2016. I believe Keon is about the 40th best centre to ever play, somewhere in that range anyhow. But then I started looking closer at Borje Salming’s career. He might be a top-15 or top-20 defenceman of all time. Matthews and Sundin are not much above or below Keon on any list of the greatest centres to ever play in Toronto. Maybe it should be the late Salming as No. 1. When Keon was named the greatest Leaf, Salming was No. 8 on the list behind Darryl Sittler, Sundin, Johnny Bower, Tim Horton along with older Leafs Syl Apps and Ted Kennedy. The ranking, it says here, is way too low for the elite game changing defenceman … Since he entered the NHL in 2013, no winger has scored more points than Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov. He has 110 points more than Patrick Kane, 129 more than Alex Ovechkin. Kucherov’s points per game are second among all players behind only Connor McDavid in his career. And Kucherov still doesn’t get enough credit for what he does … If you didn’t know this already, you should now: Macklin Celebrini is a rather incredible hockey player. He has 67 points in half a season after scoring 63 in his rookie year in San Jose, and is 37 points ahead of anyone else on his team. He’s in the halfway Hart Trophy race with Nathan MacKinnon and McDavid. Some are saying that Celebrini should win the Hart if San Jose makes the playoffs. And maybe he should. But what if MacKinnon, on pace for 68 goals, scores 70? Who do you vote for then? … According to Forbes Magazine, the Dallas Cowboys are the most profitable team in professional sports. No. 3 on their list was the Edmonton Oilers with the Maple Leafs coming in at ninth overall … Cale Makar is the default halfway winner of the Norris Trophy, for defenceman of the year. Not far behind him, Zach Werenski in Columbus. And it will be interesting to see what Quinn Hughes does in the second half. In 12 games with the Minnesota Wild, he has 12 points and the Wild has lost just two games in regulation time … Zayne Parekh got in trouble for saying that hockey players are like “robots” with “no personality.” You should never get in trouble for speaking the truth.

HEAR AND THERE

Still no word on Bo Bichette, Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger and Alex Bregman, the free agents who are holding up this baseball winter. It’s hard to figure why the Jays, who based their entire offence on putting balls in play last season, haven’t signed Bichette yet. He led the club in batting average, in hits, in doubles and RBIs and was third in OPS. I’d rather have a sure thing at second base in Bichette than a maybe at third base for $16 million in Kazuma Okamoto. The Phillies like Bichette but don’t really have the money to sign him … Yes, the Jays were great offensively in the playoffs against the Yankees and the Mariners without Bichette. You can do that when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is hitting to a 1.66 OPS against the Yankees, when George Springer is hitting four home runs against the Yanks and Mariners and Ernie Clement is hitting .411 in the playoffs. But was still Bichette who hit what should have been the World Series-winning home run in Game 7 against the Dodgers … Once one of the big free agents signs, the market should open up. It seems as though the Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers have spent their money so you wonder what’s left for the four big bats available … Important to know: Just because the Jays are spending money all over the place, doesn’t assure them of anything. The Mets are the highest spending team in baseball. They last won the World Series 40 years ago. The Yankees last won in 2009, the Phillies in 2008. The Dodgers are the only team in baseball that has figured out how to spend big and win big at the same time … Since the turn of the century, the Astros and the Royals are the only teams to lose the World Series and come back to win it the following year.

SCENE AND HEARD

I had the good fortune to get to know the legendary Glenn Hall when he was the goalies coach with the Calgary Flames in the early 1980s. What a delightful gentleman with a self-deprecating sense of humour. Before Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur came along, I thought Hall was the best goaltender I’d ever seen. And I saw him pretty late in his career. The number that will live forever: 502. Hall played that many games in a row in goal without a mask and playing butterfly style, which is hard on your knees and your hips. But he did it at his time when he was the best in the game … Truth in Maple Leafs numbers: Joseph Woll has made six consecutive starts in his career. Anthony Stolarz has made four … In today’s NHL, I would not get the opportunity to meet a Glenn Hall around most teams. You don’t get much access to assistant coaches anymore. The NHL could learn from baseball and football about making assistant coaches more available to media … Dave Branch would answer his phone with: “What is it this time?” It was me calling. He usually followed that up with: “How come you don’t call me on good days?” the former chief of junior hockey in Canada would say. He usually knew why I was calling. There was an incident or a brawl or a hazing or a player found under a bus to clear customs, the crazy stuff that happens in junior hockey. And he always had an answer, an opinion and a sharp decision, calm and well-spoken: He didn’t duck controversy. He didn’t play favourites. He didn’t talk down to the media. He was a hockey giant, gone too soon … The 1982 NHL all-star game was in Washington. And the night before the game, Bill Wirtz, owner of the Blackhawks, stayed up half the night drinking in a lobby bar with a group of hockey writers. About 2 in the morning, he announced: “I’m going to fire (coach Keith) Magnuson’s ass.” We kept drinking and eventually I went to bed. About 7 in the morning, I got a call from the Chicago Tribune reporter. He asked if I was going to report the apparent Magnuson firing. I went back to sleep. The afternoon edition of the Tribune reported that Magnuson was on his way out. Only problem was: Nobody told Bob Pulford, the general manager of the Blackhawks about Wirtz’s tirade of the night before. Pulford vehemently denied that a coach firing was apparent. The day after the all-star game, the Hawks did fire Magnuson. Pulford, the former Leafs legend who passed away this week, announced the firing.

SCENE AND HEARD

Boy, I get tired of reading basketball sites across America advocating for the Raptors to trade RJ Barrett. The Raptors are 16-7 with Barrett in the lineup this season, 7-9 without him. That’s upper echelon basketball when Barrett plays … Marcel Dionne scored more points in his career than Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Phil Esposito, Stan Mikita, Bryan Trottier and Bobby Clarke: But was he a better player than any of them? … And Dionne was a special player on mostly lousy teams … This will be Olympics No. 5 for the legend Marie-Philip Poulin, now 34 years old, which ties her with Hayley Wickenheiser and Jayna Hefford for most hockey appearances by a Canadian. Not the most ever, though. Teemu Selanne played in six Olympics for Finland … Word around is that Sarah Nurse won’t be available to play for Canada in Milan. Word around is probably wrong. Nurse is back skating after a Game 1 injury in the PWHL and should be back in the Vancouver lineup shortly. Which gives the leading scorer from four years ago more than three weeks to prepare for Team Canada … This is the world we have invented for ourselves: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is closing its doors in May. So I went on their website to read the sad story of another failed newspaper. My attempt was blocked by a paywall … There are still movies worth going to the theatre and for a night of pure entertainment, Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson was a nice night out … Watching Team Canada at the world juniors left me confused: Shouldn’t a team coached by Dale Hunter be more responsible without the puck than this version of Team Canada was? … And don’t tell me Canada isn’t developing players. All you have to is watch Celebrini and Matthew Schaefer, the two best teenaged hockey players in the world, way ahead of anyone else, missing from Team Canada for NHL reasons … So who had the Montreal Canadiens 10 points ahead of the Ottawa Senators at the halfway point of the season and the Sens second last in the Eastern Conference?

AND ANOTHER THING

This should be win-or-get-fired Sunday for Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott. How many years can you have Josh Allen at quarterback and not advance to the Super Bowl? … And everybody is drooling over the availability of John Harbaugh, who was stunningly fired in Baltimore … And shouldn’t Pete DeBoer, who I’d always hire, be coaching the Los Angeles Kings by now? Shouldn’t somebody? … What are the Detroit Tigers doing, lowballing the great Tarik Skubal in arbitration? Skubal is asking for $32 million. The Tigers are offering $19 million, which is $3 million less than the Blue Jays paid Chris Bassitt. It’s crazy to alienate your one superstar … And aren’t the throw-money-at-everyone Blue Jays cheaping out on Eric Lauer, who all but saved the middle of their season last summer?… The average NHL building operates at 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Last week, when the Florida Panthers played outdoors, the temperature in Miami was 59 degrees …. The Olympics have a history of venues not being ready on time and causing pre-Games panic. The hockey will come off in Milan. It may not be perfect. Everyone will be playing on the same ice, in the same rink. Games will be decided by the players, circumstances be damned … Happy birthday to Frank Mahovlich (88), Chris Boucher (33), Abdullah the Butcher (85), Ben Crenshaw (74), J.P. Crawford (30), Elly De La Cruz (24), John Avery (50), John Carlson (36) and Jean Chretien (92) … And hey, whatever became of Vinny Testaverde?