Marner-Leafs Drama Point Replacement & NHL Hot Topics

Senior NHL writer John Matisz breaks down the hot topics across the hockey landscape, combining his perspective with insights from around the game.

Marner, Leafs should have no regrets

The endless chatter about Mitch Marner and the Maple Leafs this week keeps coming back to one thing. People have short memories.

It’s tempting to play the “Does the departed player miss his old team more than the team misses the player?” game. Thursday’s TSN broadcast of the Leafs-Golden Knights game leaned into the narrative. What-ifs are fun.

But neither Marner nor the Leafs should be regretting the divorce.

The late June sign-and-trade sent Marner to Vegas for eight years. It closed a chapter in Leafs history that was equal parts exhilarating, excruciating, and exhausting. His departure wasn’t controversial because it was the logical next step.

Remember the playoff failures. Two series victories in nine postseasons. The toxic relationship between homegrown star forward and Stanley Cup-starved fan base. How badly all three parties needed to take a breather and redirect their energy elsewhere.

Asking who’s better off half a season later misses the entire point of moving on in the first place.

Everybody’s better off, by default.

The 23-16-8 Leafs aren’t perfect, but they’re better off seeing what comes of spending Marner’s salary on multiple pieces. Even if it means one fewer 100-point two-way winger in the lineup. Marner’s transition to Vegas hasn’t been smooth on or off the ice, but he’s better off establishing a new identity. Even if it means fewer points, minutes, and reps at center to start.

It couldn’t have been fun to be Marner on Thursday, getting booed by visiting fans on home ice. But that’s part of the transition and finally moving on.

Doan and Sabres keep rolling

Since Dec. 9, the Sabres lead the NHL in standings points collected. 30 points in 17 games and a .882 points percentage off a 15-2-0 run.

A team doesn’t go on a monthlong tear, climbing from last in the Eastern Conference to the first wild card, without nearly everything going well.

Top players Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin have been sensational. Multiple lines have been productive, team defense has been locked in, and the three rostered goalies have combined for a .918 save percentage.

We’re not taking anything for granted. Every game is like a playoff game for us

Dahlin told theScore on Monday from his stall at Buffalo’s KeyBank Center.

After the 10-game winning streak we had, we lost a game. Right then and there, we told each other that this is going to be the biggest test of this season. Are we going to bounce back? Or not? What do we have in us?

Spoiler alert: A lot. Five wins in their next six games, boosting their playoff odds to 56.6%, according to MoneyPuck.

The Sabres have failed to make the postseason 14 straight years. An NHL record that’s in danger of falling this spring.

First-year Sabre Josh Doan has been the biggest standout during the run. Part of an offseason trade that sent forward JJ Peterka to Utah, Doan has emerged as a first-line winger. The 6-foot-2, 198-pound son of ex-NHLer Shane Doan is effective along the walls, disruptive on the forecheck, and skilled enough to facilitate and finish around the net.

He moves the needle.

He’s an infectious type of player

Head coach Lindy Ruff said.

He looks like he’s been playing in the league for 500 games

Dahlin added.

Doan, a 2021 second-round pick who turns 24 in February, is the perfect complement to a game-breaker like Thompson. He’s assuming the Zach Hyman role alongside Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews.

You want to have a skilled guy, a dog, and then the third guy depends on the line. You have to have versatility throughout the lineup

Sabres winger Jason Zucker said.

Zucker, a 15-year veteran on his fifth team, sees some Zach Parise in Doan.

Really good netfront guy. Was always hounding pucks. Had a really good stick and created a lot of turnovers. I’m impressed with Doaner’s ability to turn pucks over and get pucks back. He’s really good at keeping plays alive

Picking Point’s potential replacement

Brayden Point, one of the first six players named to Canada’s Olympic team, needed to be helped off the ice during Monday’s Lightning-Flyers game.

The Lightning say Point is out “week-to-week.” Olympic men’s hockey starts Feb. 11, four-and-a-half weeks from the time of his apparent leg injury.

Point struggled to start the year but recently started to look his electric self. Eight goals and 11 assists in his last 15 games. Despite being a natural center, many penciled in the Calgary native as McDavid’s right-winger. His quick feet and hands and off-puck habits made him ideal. Most crucially, McDavid and Point were linemates for a stretch at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Wyatt Johnston, Seth Jarvis, Connor Bedard, Mark Scheifele, Travis Konecny, and Sam Bennett will contend for a roster spot if Point’s forced to bow out. General manager Doug Armstrong has said that Canada’s injured Olympians will likely be replaced by players with similar skill sets.

Johnston, the 22-year-old Stars winger, is most comparable to Point. He has the handedness, speed, offensive versatility, and defense traits. Also, he leads the NHL in power-play goals while ranking top 10 in inner-slot shots, scoring chances generated off the cycle, and chances off rebounds.

A couple connections won’t hurt his chances. Stars GM Jim Nill and ex-Stars coach Pete DeBoer are key members of Canada’s brain trust.

Bedard and Bennett deserve serious consideration too. The other three, while stellar players, seem to be a tier below.

Maurice: NHL is harder, heavier, faster

Paul Maurice sits second all time in NHL games coached. 1,976 contests between Hartford/Carolina, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Florida. Three decades in, he remains one of the most insightful people in the sport.

On Monday, I asked Maurice about the uniqueness of 2024-25. With teams gritting through a condensed schedule caused by a three-week Olympic break, players have limited practice time. A disproportionate number have been injured.

How’s the quality of hockey been at ice level?

It’s way harder, way heavier, and at times, faster

The 58-year-old reported.

Maurice believes his back-to-back Stanley Cup-winning Panthers have influenced the increase in physicality across the league. He’s noticed “more and more teams run a wing lock” – a reference to Florida’s smothering, aggressive forechecking tactic.

Teams have adopted the styles that we stole from somebody else. It’s made the game quite a bit more physical

Most teams have shifted from playing a protect-the-slot zone defense to an aggressive man-to-man defense. Vegas preferred the zone style during its 2023 Cup run. Florida uses the man-to-man style. The change has led to different types of hockey being played in each conference.

In the West, I think it’s faster, and that’s just a function of how teams defend. They will give you (open) ice, like Vegas does. You can win (playing that brand of hockey). They’re a hell of a team, and we couldn’t get a puck near the net when we played Vegas (in the 2023 final)

Texier, the Habs’ latest project

Montreal signed Alexandre Texier to a two-year, $5-million contract extension Wednesday. The goal-scoring winger joined the club as a free-agent signee two months ago, with his original deal having been terminated by the Blues.

Texier, 26, is another reclamation project for Canadiens president Jeff Gorton, GM Kent Hughes, and head coach Martin St. Louis. The franchise has acquired 20-something forwards in need of a change of scenery, hoping St. Louis and his staff can find untapped potential.

The full list:

• Kirby Dach, acquired in July 2022 trade
• Sean Monahan, August 2022 trade
• Alex Newhook, June 2023 trade
• Patrik Laine, August 2024 trade
• Joe Veleno, July 2024 signing after buyout
• Texier, November 2024 signing after termination

Monahan, who arrived in Montreal with a first-round pick then fetched the Habs another first on his way out, is the one home run. The rest are a mixed bag of strikeouts and singles. But attempting to resuscitate careers in this manner is worthwhile if done tastefully.

No winner in year-old Miller trade

Most high-profile trades end up win-win or win-lose. It’s rare to revisit a trade almost a year later and declare it an L for both sides.

Yet that’s exactly what the Jan. 31, 2024, swap between the Rangers and Canucks is. A refresher: New York acquired J.T. Miller, Erik Brannstrom, and Jackson Dorrington in exchange for Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, and a conditional draft pick that was flipped to Pittsburgh in the Marcus Pettersson trade.

Miller was named New York’s captain in the fall, but he’s one of many Rangers struggling amid a miserable season. Brannstrom, a 300-game NHLer, is currently playing in Switzerland. Dorrington looks like an AHL lifer.

Chytil was supposed to fix the Canucks’ center depth, but he’s appeared in just 21 total games due to ongoing concussion issues. Mancini’s spent more time in the AHL than the NHL.

It’s no coincidence that Vancouver is ostensibly on the rebuilding path and New York is officially undergoing a retool 12 months after the Miller trade.

Is expansion on the horizon?

Reader eraldeb recently asked about expanding beyond 32 teams.

Expansion in the future? There are many cities that can bid, but who really has a chance at gaining an NHL club? Houston? Atlanta? Quebec City? Portland? Kansas City? There are tons of cities!

It’s a near guarantee the NHL will expand to 34 teams at some point, perhaps within the next decade. Expansion fees of $2 billion or more per club await.

It could well happen, and there’s a tremendous amount of interest out there

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The Hockey News earlier in January.

We’re not pushing expansion. If it happens, it will be, for lack of a better word, organic. Somebody will come in and say, ‘We can check the four primary boxes. Let’s have a good look together’

The 73-year-old added.

Ownership, market, and arena are three of the boxes. The fourth is more ambiguous: Will expanding to City X with Ownership Group Y in Year Z “make the game stronger, make the league stronger?”

From reading between the lines of league comments and off-the-record conversations with people in the sport, here’s my ranking of the top possible cities: