A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Hearing Sportsnet would rather me in Buffalo.
1. Daytime TV heads know Judge Judy has unleashed more all-time lines than the 2026 Winter Games ice hockey tournament. Arguably her most famous: “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
That quotable ping-ponged in our brains when we read MLSE president Keith Pelley’s pre-deadline email to Toronto Maple Leafs season ticket holders, which is the only tangible communication from the most powerful man (not named Auston Matthews) in the organization.
Pelley, you may recall, ditched golf a couple of years back and flew home across the Atlantic Ocean talking about “good simply isn’t good enough.” He claimed the Maple Leafs weren’t in the business of selling jerseys; they were all about hanging banners.
(Talk is cheap. An authentic No. 34 sweater — better upgrade from the A and get that C stitched below the shoulder! — ain’t.)
Well, either Pelley is lowering his bar, or he’s trying to convince fans that this season’s performance is nothing more than a little drizzle. No rain checks after the turn. Sorry, folks.
In his memo to the club’s spendiest supporters, Pelley rested on his predecessors’ laurels, reminding that the Maple Leafs “made the playoffs nine seasons in a row, the longest streak in the NHL and something to be proud of.”
The executive also characterized the Leafs’ 2025-26 campaign as “a series of ups and downs” and leaned on injuries and a compact schedule as an excuse. As if the other 31 franchises are all healthy and rested.
Fans unwilling to be gaslit, however, sense a storm is a-brewin’. They felt the sting of this acidic precipitation.
Today’s iteration of Pelley’s Maple Leafs, another six-game losing skid and one underwhelming sell-off deadline later, are, at best, disconnected and disconcerting. All they need is Anthony Stolarz and Chris Tanev to stay healthy for 82, and Matthews to rediscover his Rocket form, and they’ll be right back.
At worst, today’s Leafs are disillusioned and facing a rebuild/retool/restructuring that will require great creativity and, let’s face it, some lucky bounces.
New leaders and new suits and new players wearing letters are all needed if this hockey team is serious about winning a Stanley Cup.
Forget a championship. Toronto is no longer a playoff threat, and they just traded away three real NHL talents.
“Good” would feel fantastic these days.
General manager Brad Treliving made a few fine signings in isolation, but he has dropped the ball on the big moves and has been too slow to course correct. That includes sticking by head coach Craig Berube, another standup hockey man and another good man who has run out of solutions.
Treliving insisted Friday that there definitely will be a plan to make a plan. What’s not clear is who is devising that blueprint and if they should be trusted to carry it out effectively.
Treliving and Berube still have term and jobs to perform. The players left untraded still have 19 games to show up for. All of this will play out under a dark raincloud.
What’s worrisome is, we’re not certain the man in charge has received the weather report.
2. We love the work first-time GM Craig Conroy has done in Calgary, a team finally stripping things down with aggression and loading up on picks and prospects.
The haul for MacKenzie Weegar was impressive. (And we don’t believe Zach Whitecloud is a crazy downgrade from Noah Hanifin. The kid has skill and heart.) And eating some of 35-year-old Nazem Kadri’s salary and doing right by the player in exchange for another hefty package of futures was the proper call.
Over the next three drafts, the Flames are absolutely stacked: six first-rounders, eight second-rounders, and four third-rounders.
No, they won’t be drafting and developing all those guys. Eventually, they’ll use some of that stockpile as trade ammo.
Now comes the tricky part.
With a tantalizing 2028 World Cup hosting bid in place and a shiny new barn on the way, Conroy’s group is set up lovely to be a major player in a few years.
What the Flames desperately need now is a face, a superstar.
If they can’t get some draft luck, Conroy’s greatest challenge is coming. At least he has the currency to spend.
3. Easily the most shocking trade of the season was that of John Carlson to Anaheim.
The still-effective right-shot defenceman sucked the energy out of the only NHL dressing room he knew — yet should inject life and leadership into a Pacific Division dark horse that now boasts a seasoned and sturdy right side of Jacob Trouba, Radko Gudas, and Carlson.
“Today sucks. It’s brutal,” Tom Wilson told reporters at Capitals practice. “I’m sure there are some guys that want to cry. That’s the reality of it. Today you can cry, and tomorrow you got to wake up and be a big boy and play hockey. We have to do our job.”
Playing alongside Carlson is all he’s ever known.
“There’s certain guys in the locker room that are just a north star a little bit,” Wilson continued. “I never foresaw like a Capitals game without John Carlson in it.”
Still “in shock,” Alex Ovechkin — who, like Carlson, is skating on an expiring deal — claimed Friday as the saddest day of his career.
How does the removal of Carlson affect his own decision on whether to re-sign in D.C.?
“I don’t know,” Ovechkin replied. “I’m still here, so we’ll see. We’ll see what’s going to happen. It’s a hard one.”
4. Brayden Schenn feels like a classic New York Islanders acquisition: high character, responsible defensively, plays centre, a little past prime but still valuable.
5. Quote of the Week.
“My son was like, ‘Well, I’ll stay because, you know, I have a hockey team here. I didn’t get traded.’” —Leo Trocheck, age 7, when informed by Vincent that Dad might be getting traded this week (he wasn’t).
6. In classic big brother style, Quinn Hughes spoke wonderfully about Jack the day he froze the clock and ended the 46-year wait:
“I remember when he got injured. He got injured last year in Vegas, and he was just crushed. A couple days after that, he sent me a text message of what he wanted to say to the media, a post on Instagram. It was basically a long message about how much he loves the game, he’s sorry to the fans, he just wants to play.
“I was like, ‘Hey, maybe (cut) some of that stuff out.’ It was so raw. I remember thinking: This guy just loves the game. He just wants to play. For him to make that impact, I’m not surprised. When I look around the room before overtime, there were three or four guys looking at him like, ‘That guy’s not nervous. He wants to be that guy.’ And I felt that way about Jack.”
That was on camera.
Off camera, Quinn Hughes fired back the criticism Jack faced in Jersey for skipping some Devils games due to health concerns leading up to the Games.
“Yeah, people don’t know s—. There’s a bunch of idiots out there, and no one’s rehabbed before, you know?” Quinn said.
“There’s reporters out there saying this and that. They don’t know what it’s like to get surgery for six months, not really feel good for 10 months, and do that back-to-back. For him to just persevere and keep believing and just keep going no matter what happens, he’s a special guy, special player.”
7. Sure, getting invited to feature on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show is cool and all, but Jack Hughes made the big time when he was awarded his own signature sandwich at Newark’s legendary Hobby’s Delicatessen, best served with a side of fried Olympic onion rings:
We instead opted for the “Nico,” a stacked chicken sandwich layered with plenty of Swiss and created by Devils captain Hischier.
(And, yes, Hobby’s is still shilling the King Henrik Soup: “Bowl only, no Cups.”)
8. Plenty of unemptied notebook entries from Italy.
One of the best interviews from the American side all tournament long was Dylan Larkin, whose immediate breakdown of Hughes’s golden goal was impassioned:
“That goal going in there, Jacko, just that moment — I can’t wait to watch it. The difference between a guy that wants to puck on a stick in that moment: If you watch the video, I turn and go back, he wants it and he f—— put it in the net. That’s what superstar players do, and that moment for us, that’s going to stick with me for the rest of my life.”
Larkin, who roomed with U.S. captain Auston Matthews, also leaned into the power of staying in the Olympic Village, which Team Canada opted not to do and was a talking point heading into the event.
“The best experience of my life and in hockey, and the Olympic spirit is what I think we had today. And that’s a pretty powerful thing. Because it’s been so awesome representing Team USA,” Larkin said.
“Olympic spirit, team chemistry, and there’s something to that. When you’re around all the other athletes, the best athletes in the world, and you get to talk to them and be around that environment, it’s contagious. And we’re Team USA, and we get to hang and talk to figure skaters and speedskaters, and it’s just winning gold is contagious. And being around them, being around winners, being around great athletes was something that I’m very appreciative we did.”
9. All Gabriel Landeskog knows is dramatic comebacks.
Speaking to the captain of Sweden and Colorado in Milan, he said his return to action came down to the wire. He had been out since Jan. 4 with damaged ribs and there had been constant dialogue with the contending Avalanche over whether he’d make it to the Olympics.
“I don’t think we were really convinced that it was going to work, but we were trying,” Landeskog said. “Complete opposite to my knee injury — once the ribs started feeling better, they felt better progressively. Every single day, it was big steps. Whereas the knee, you could go months without feeling much improvement. So, that was exciting.”
Landeskog’s Olympic dream was fueled by his “core memories” of Sweden’s gold medal in 2006.
“I was in my living room at our house in a suburb of Stockholm, watching the time slowly tick down, and Swedes were diving for loose pucks and blocking shots, and Lundqvist made a crazy save at the end. And I remember I thought with an Olympic gold medal was all bets were off the table. So, I got up on my feet, on the couch, started jumping up and down,” Landeskog said.
“And my dad was like, ‘Hey, hey, you’re gonna break the couch.’ So, I guess so not everything was off the table.
“Matt Sundin and Forsberg, and the Sedin brothers were young. But Lidstrom and Kronwall and Zetterberg, those are the guys that I grew up just idolizing.”
Landeskog is cognizant that he can play a role in inspiring the next generation of Swedish hockey players. And his impact on the Avalanche — now loaded up the middle and poised for its best Cup shot since 2022, Landeskog’s last full season — can go a long way toward that.
No doubt, they’re better when he’s healthy:
10. So, with more intriguing goalies available at the trade deadline than usual — Sergei Bobrovsky, Jordan Binnington, Jesper Wallstedt, Anthony Stolarz — the Edmonton Oilers are about to try to win a Stanley Cup with a tandem of Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram.
Both netminders have an .890 save percentage. Neither has won a playoff series.
11. Corey Perry just wormed his way back into another Stanley Cup Final, didn’t he?
Everyone’s situation is different, but I respect the mercenary veteran athlete who is happy to pack up and move if it means getting a shot at a championship.
Even more so when they already have a ring and want a second one so bad.
Perry is scrambling to get to Toronto to make his Lightning re-debut Saturday night against the Maple Leafs.
12. We don’t root for teams here, but the world might just be a better place if the San Jose Sharks — not a pure seller for the first time in half a decade — can tuck themselves into a wild card.
Fueled, as dad Rick said, by Olympic disappointment, the world needs more of a prime-time spotlight on Macklin Celebrini.
Just a marvellous drive on this kid:
