Leafs Meet the New Month; Same As the Old Month

Published on 4-Feb-2015 by J Square Humboldt

NHL    NHL Daily Update

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Leafs Meet the New Month; Same As the Old Month

The Toronto Maple Leafs must have been the inspiration for 'winter rules' on golf courses.

Season after season, they may as well be teeing it up this time of year.

And golf courses reward players for low scores.

As if new lows couldn't be delved, the Leafs found a way. Their 1-11-1 January was nothing short of historical, in a Leafly kind of way:

To no one's surprise, ex-Leaf coach Ron Wilson had a point when he said the current disaster wasn't down to ex-Leaf coach Randy Carlyle, who just happens to wear a Stanley Cup ring with the Ducks' logo on it.

What is it about this franchise? Trying to win last year's Cup is part of it. Name something that's trending in the NHL, and Toronto will be oblivious to it. Each spring, when champions are passing the Cup around, some know they won't be there much longer. Meanwhile, as Leafs are scheduling their tee times, they're doing so from the comfort of their long-term rentals.

Then, of course, there's this:

That Swinns and a Fede line never gets old. But one day, the Nylander kid whom Cherry's ripping will. Kinda like Nashville's Filip Forsberg did.

That Swede and his crew -- which included eight Canadians -- did alright last night against Toronto and its 12 citizens of the Great White North. Give Nashville's contingent credit, though; they accounted for most of the highlights.

Those would be Shea Weber, Mike Fisher, Colin Wilson, and one of the season's best saves by Carter Hutton, as the Preds gave Toronto more of January in February:

If there was a simple answer to Leaf Mode, it woulda been on the table by now. Maybe it's just a state of mind, the same sort of fatalism their baseball doppelgängers -- the Cubs -- endure.

That's the stuff of self-fulfilling prophecies. And that makes for season upon season of months like January, with no end in sight.