Leafs make CONTROVERSIAL move... This has fans livid | Toronto Maple Leafs News

This situation just got even crazier. Following Chris Tanev being placed on the IR, we just got multiple huge updates surrounding Tanev, and a timeline has now been revealed following a report from Chris Johnson. It's a little bit better than fans thought, but also absolutely absurd, as this team desperately needs blue line help. But not only that, the Leafs have made a big move that has fans pretty livid, and it involves Mr. Gavin Tanev. But before we get into all of it, a very quick reminder to hit that subscribe button. and your guys' support has been unbelievable. Now, there is Chris Tanev. He went down on the IR, which means we have kind of a semi-timeline here surrounding when he'll hopefully be back. And let's start with Chris Tanev. So, initially, it came out, of course, he was put on the IR, and then Jim Hiller came out and revealed that, as of now, there's no direct timeline for his return. Now, this was yesterday. However, Chris Johnson did just drop a report about an hour or so ago revealing that on early insider trading, he's sensing that there's more optimism around Tanev's situation than what he went through last season. Elliot Freeman was asked basically if we're going to go after, you know, another move and make a trade. And it seems like that isn't going to happen. But let's start with this there. So while we don't have a direct timeline in the sense of, you know, he's gonna be back in three or four games, we do have a timeline to where he's not going to be missing as much time as he did last year, which means according to Chris Johnson, this is probably going to be more of a week to week thing as opposed to month to month. Yeah. And I think that was obvious by the move that they made if they knew he was going to be out for more than a month he would probably go on LTIR and then we would be talking about a move because him going on LTIR would free up cap space for them to go out and make a move right or even more cap space they do have quite a bit of cap space right now so uh to me them putting him and we didn't really talk about this yesterday it was more of just like Chris Tanev kind of is out what does this mean immediately for the team but um him going on IR it doesn't necessarily say he's out you know for a week he's out for at least a week so he could be out for two to three weeks hopefully it's you know he's okay but like Chris Johnson was saying this morning there's optimism it sounds like it's not going to be something that's too bad that's going to keep him out a long time he's going to return uh and i do really wonder what it is right if it has anything to do with what he injured or how he was hurt last year so um that's pretty interesting but it doesn't sound like it's anything that's going to keep him out long term and according to Friedman too it doesn't sound like they're going to go out and make a trade it's the type of thing where they can't tell you exactly what day he'll be back but he's not going to be out that long and they're just going to see how it goes with guys internally like a Marshall Five for example like Blankenberg who made his pretty good NHL not NHL sorry Leafs debut on saturday and scored a goal so uh i think they want to ride it out for a little bit see how that looks if it looks poor then maybe they go out and make a trade and you know maybe move him to LTIR retroactive uh to you know the weekend but um i i just don't see that being the case it doesn't sound like it's anything like super negative or that he's going to be out long term yeah it's good news better than we initially thought i think now at the same time we know his strengths and weaknesses he's not going to shoot the puck but his defense has been among the best in the NHL for years now and what this team will do without him we're going to have to see starting tonight obviously with Utah we'll dive into the lines in a minute here but it's going to be a by committee approach Taylor kind of spoke on that a little bit talking about that and saying you just do it by committee you're not going to be able to replace Chris Tanev uh one for one with anybody right not Nick Blankenburg not a Marshall Refine, but what you can do now is hopefully have guys step up. And who's going to be that? I mean, who's going to step up? A lot of players, but hopefully Jake McCabe. He's going to see an increase in his time as well. And, you know, in the past, prior to the last game, he was obviously paired with Tanev. Now he's paired with Radice. So it's going to be interesting. So comment down below how you guys feel about this. Do you like this update? I think overall, it's a good, it's good news, right? That he's not going to be out a very, very long time. That being said, that could change. We never really know because this Leafs team has been in the past pretty vague about it. But, Dears, we also need to talk about some of the lineups tonight. And it flows right into the Chris Tanev stuff. So we'll kind of continue on it. But I want to start with the forward group here before reverting back to the blue line. So you'll notice that Mr. John Tavares is back now in the lineup after he had his fourth child, a baby boy named Tucker. So congratulations to him and his family. I think he said that's it now. So he's going to stick with four kids, maybe four future Leafs. More importantly here, though, well, not more importantly, more importantly probably to some people, I guess, is that he is back on the second line. McKenna, he is now on the third line again, which we're familiar with. What are your thoughts on these lines here? Nothing changes there. Something did change, and that is regarding the power play, folks. You're going to want to close your eyes here. They reverted McKenna back down to power play number two, pushing Tavares up top. And to be quite frank, I absolutely hate this move. We'll get to the power play in a second because we need time to talk about that. But on the line specifically, I don't understand why they're continuing to start games like this because they're not finishing games with it looking like this, right? so that has been confusing for me over the last at least two games where you know you started the season you're like all right you're finding things through you know the second half of a game in the third period trying different line combinations you found that Nylander and Matthews work very well together that's shocking uh but you found that and you're not starting games like that so I feel like there's another situation tonight where you can go into this game and go it's not working again and then you mix it up again and then maybe they come out with the win but why aren't i think it's weird that they're not starting games like that because you found things that do work and things that don't work but yet you're still starting the game with the things that don't work so i think that's kind of interesting Nick i don't know if you have you know any thoughts on that specifically and guys let us know how you feel about that in the comments too but i am the biggest John Tavares defender on the channel when everyone early season was saying this guy's garbage he can't carry the puck anymore he's washed all that type of stuff when people were saying he was washed two years ago we were defending him on the channel he is still a great hockey player and i think that he's going to be fine this season right i think he's going to have overall in another really really good season but he needs to come off the power play he cannot be the guy that's carrying the puck in on the power play and not just that i understand you want somebody net front but if you need to put somebody net front then put Crofoot Marchenko there right now because that's actually working as well Gavin McKenna needs to be on this power play because he's producing he's showing results and the power play before he was put on power play one was not it was the complete opposite and power play two looked more dangerous on a regular basis actually so um more dangerous but i should say that the power play overall this year looks more dangerous which i think is a good thing overall but um he needs to come off right and again i love john Tavares but what we're seeing right now is mckenna getting more comfortable and creating plays and he needs to be on power play one with those top guys to ensure that when you get a power play you score right because they have the ability to do that we saw it on saturday so um i'm not gonna get like you know toss my stuff and and break a monitor over it or whatever it is but um i think it's a bit ridiculous at this point and it's the first like oopsie for me with jim hiller like uh you've we've seen it we saw it buddy we saw it on the weekend it works let's let's try it so that's that's tough yeah and it also makes the second power play significantly i'm not gonna say worse but you have McKenna now, and you have two defensemen. You have Nick Blankenberg on the power play alongside Morgan, Riley, Jack Ross with McKenna and Cowan. So I think it's an interesting power play unit, but we saw it significantly better with Gavin McKenna on it. Very small sample size, obviously, one or two games, but I don't know. I'm sure a lot of people are upset about it. I just don't think Tavares is, he shouldn't be there. And it's less about Tavares. I think McKenna just looks fantastic. He was one of the best facilitators, obviously, on the team, and I'm fine saying that early, and he can kind of hopefully be what Mitch Marner was to a degree when it comes to that power play with Austin Matthews. And honestly, even maybe less about Austin Matthews, William Nylander as well, they seem to be jiving very well. So comment down below what your thoughts are on that. I absolutely despise the move regarding the blue line pairs. We're going back to, of course, McCabe-Radish. They're sticking with that, which I actually think was good. It worked pretty well. You have Riley Stetcher, which a little bit scary there on the defensive side of things. And then OEL Blankenburg. Refai is available as depth. We'll see if they rock with Marshall Refai. And Mr. Solaris is going to be the projected starter for tonight. So any final thoughts there? It's the end of the day here. It's either way. You're out of this road trip with a positive mindset. You got three points out of the potential six, but going two and one would be a really two. Oh, and one would be absolutely incredible to be able to get five out of the six points. That would be a dream. Even if you lose, I don't want to be, it's okay. It sucks, obviously, but you're going with Solaris tonight and then I assume Bobrovsky you'll go next game. You're feeling good about yourself as a team. I think they can pick up a win here and there's no back to backs on this trip, right? They're, they're rested. They're ready to go. So it would be a huge win. And I can't wait to talk about it later on stream with everyone. We'll be live, Nick, later after the game. One thing we will be talking about, we have no idea how this game is going to go, right? Maybe the Leafs lose. Maybe they win. Maybe there's like seven power play goals. It could be amazing, right? One thing we will be talking about later tonight is that Riley Stetcher pairing. I promise you that we will be mentioning that in some way later tonight because that is going to either not stick or be an absolute disaster. So we will see how that looks. I like the fact that Nick Blankenburg is back in the lineup and he'll be used in a depth role but uh yeah i can't wait to talk about that pairing later uh with you on stream but uh no hopefully the leafs win good opportunity for Anthony Stolarz again here uh and nice to see John Tavares back in the lineup just not nice to see him again it has nothing to do with him specifically but not nice to see him back on power play one because i think that is uh something that McKenna over the last little while has earned and uh should be given a look again yeah let us know down below your thoughts on this a bit of a positive kind of update and a less positive move see you guys later