{"id":704,"date":"2021-04-18T01:38:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T01:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=704"},"modified":"2021-04-18T01:40:25","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T01:40:25","slug":"maple-leafs-go-all-in-for-the-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/04\/18\/maple-leafs-go-all-in-for-the-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Go All In For the Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For the first time in the 21<sup>st<\/sup>&nbsp;century, the Toronto Maple Leafs look to be serious Stanley Cup contenders. On trade deadline day, Kyle Dubas, Leafs general manager, pushed all the chips in to solidify his team.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Leafs currently sit in first place in the Scotiabank North Division with 60 points in 44 games, a three-point lead over the Winnipeg Jets, who sit in second place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One player that has been a part of their success is Auston Matthews, who in 40 games this year has 32 goals. With that total, he sits first in the league for goals scored with a six-goal lead, despite missing four games due to multiple injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At this pace, he would score 44 goals in a 56-game season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5886921\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>As we inched closer to the deadline, it was clear that the team should shore up their depth, especially in the forward position.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a press conference on March 16, Dubas said,&nbsp;&#8220;I think it&#8217;s very clear that our team will explore every opportunity to improve.&#8221; He added that most of their trade conversations centered around forwards. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the Leafs traded for Nick Foligno on April 11<sup>th<\/sup>, Dubas filled that need perfectly. A winger who can play up and down the lineup and will get in puck battles most don\u2019t like to.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It should be clear to fans that Kyle Dubas was not messing around this year. In years past, Dubas has only made moves that the team needed, like trading for Jack Campbell, a backup goalie. Which the team desperately needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.knightlab.com\/libs\/timeline3\/latest\/embed\/index.html?source=1frRzmDJ2Rl9fk0PC4ol4HD2CWvmVhvklOC8llY6i2ac&amp;font=Default&amp;lang=en&amp;initial_zoom=0&amp;height=700\" width=\"75%\" height=\"700\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>After last year\u2019s embarrassing loss to David Ayres, Dubas made the decision to not make many moves at the deadline. He even went as far as taking back a contract offer to defensemen Zach Bogosian, who had just been released from the Buffalo Sabres.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nick Foligno also sees something with this team. While there were multiple teams in on him, he chose to come to Toronto.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his first media availability, he said, \u201cI&#8217;m really looking forward to just getting there and getting acquainted with everything and then hitting the ground running and helping any way I can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"width: 100%;\"><div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 200.00%; padding-top: 0; height: 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"200\" height=\"400\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/view.genial.ly\/607aff5bffd6ea0d8f38e11f\" type=\"text\/html\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" scrolling=\"yes\" allownetworking=\"all\"><\/iframe> <\/div> <\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>On deadline day, the Leafs also acquired goaltender David Rittich from the Calgary Flames and defensemen Ben Hutton from the Anaheim Ducks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>**Statistics updated up to April 17<sup>th<\/sup>, 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in the 21st&nbsp;century, the Toronto Maple Leafs look to be serious Stanley Cup contenders. On trade deadline day, Kyle Dubas, Leafs general manager, pushed all the chips in to solidify his team.&nbsp; The Leafs currently sit in first place in the Scotiabank North Division with 60 points in 44 games, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}