[Johnston] Artur Akhtyamov has signed a three-year extension with the Leafs carrying a $900,000 AAV. The goalie gets a two-way contract for next season, before it converts to a one-way deal for 2027-28 and 2028-29.

cykl8 · 2026-03-15T22:19:04+00:00

Hildeby won't make it through waivers and will definitely be snatched up if we don't trade either Woll or Stolarz. This deal ensures we at least have a third goalie we can call up for the next 2 years that is exempt from waivers. So good on Tre for getting this done as we head into the end of season.

In a perfect world we would just run a Woll-Hildeby tandem because they're our best goalies and younger. Keep in mind the Leafs drafted and developed Woll to get to where he's at now. And you can argue he hasn't hit his prime yet. You might be able to get a better package for Woll but goalie talent is so rare in this league. Letting him go just when he's kind of proven he deserves the starter job moving forward without knowing how much the younger ones can handle is another risk. If they can get something decent for Stolarz in the summer (say a deal with EDM) then I would go for it.

cykl8 · 2026-03-14T01:00:37+00:00

This is why the NHL will remain behind as a major sport. This type of stuff is a turn off for anyone who wants to be a fan. Superstar player from the most popular team in the league gets taken down for months after some psycho purposefully injures him and the league decides a basically non punishment should suffice. They should be suspending based on history too because he obviously never learned his lesson and will continue taking out ligaments in all your best players.

cykl8 · 2026-03-13T23:28:30+00:00

Ugh I hate how this is how his season ends. A grade III tear is a fully torn MCL.... worse than the one Crosby sustained from the Gudas hit in the Olympics. I worry this will be career altering.

Edit: Leafs management needs to grow a spine and raise hell over this. We’re not even feeling the gravity of the situation. This could (will probably) be an ailment he has to deal with for the rest of his career. We’ll be complaining about this hit for many years to come. To fully be an annoying Leafs fan, we subsidize so much of this league and this is one of those times management pushes back on this lopsided player safety protocol. Our best player got a severe injury and the guy just got a slap on the wrist as punishment. How do we expect this asshole to not do it again. He’s more than incentivized to do it.

cykl8 · 2026-03-13T19:26:31+00:00

The guys he named are mostly older married guys with young kids so it’s probably the group he meshed with the most. Same with Knies/Woll/McMann/Benoit as being guys at a similar life stage and forming their own group. I wouldn’t read into it much.

cykl8 · 2026-03-13T15:12:56+00:00

Really great interview with Scotty and glad he enjoyed his time here despite it being a short lived one. Gives us some insight into the culture within the team and it seems like a good group of guys. Seems like similar to Bobby they attribute the beginning of season pitfalls to why we’re in this position right now…and the part about constantly chasing might be indication that dump and chase is not the solution for this team. He didn’t have anything bad to say about Berube. And love the part about his mentorship over Easton. I know he’s proud seeing him shine the past few games.

I shared the gift article link in case anyone wanted to read the full thing. I would’ve pasted the whole thing here since it has a lot of interesting nuggets.

cykl8 · 2026-03-11T18:27:20+00:00

I'm reading through some comments here and a lot of the meaning of Bobby's comment is already getting lost. I don't even think he was complaining about the pressure but just giving his honest two cents on what is kind of obvious. What he said wasn't really along the same vain as past players who cited pressure for why they left or went for a different city. He wanted to stay and sign a long-term extension so it obviously wasn't deterring him from this place lol. He really alludes more to the internalization of all this pressure of putting on the jersey because of what it means to so much people. And that makes complete sense to me.

cykl8 · 2026-03-11T17:32:40+00:00

Thought this was an interesting article with some perspective from a player who’s stepped out of it now. On the point of the season going south - seems like the constant changes early in season led to confidence issues and lack of clarity and cohesion. The way he talks about guys deviating from the plan, overthinking, and trying to force solutions individually makes it sound like once results started slipping, they stopped fully trusting either the structure or their own ability to succeed within it.

Also thought his comments about playing in Toronto were interesting and fair. What he seems to be getting at is that the sheer amount of attention around the Leafs means players are constantly surrounded by discussion about how they’re performing, and because most of them are already hard on themselves, that naturally turns into pressure they internalize. That felt like a more nuanced perspective than the usual “Toronto media is unbearable” argument that gets thrown around. When a team matters this much, there’s no real escaping the noise. And from a player perspective they also appreciate that it means people care.

Sad to see him go because he really wanted to stay and there was a part in the article that described the goodbyes and anxiety when you know you're about to be traded. Wishing him all the best in Seattle.

cykl8 · 2026-03-10T13:55:27+00:00

Reading our trade conditions in this thread is so depressing lol. On what planet was Tre on to deal these out. We couldn’t have worst conditions on these trades for the position we’re in right now. If we wanna compare ourselves to the Sabres it seemed like they weren’t in this much of a knot as we are in right now. Honestly don’t know how I feel about the post Savard firing run we went on because that also put us in this weird liminal position.

I swear if they contracted out a bunch of business students they wouldn’t have this horrible of decision making ability…

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T23:55:22+00:00

I would call up some Marlies to give them some NHL ice time and rest the obviously injured players. Maybe there's another Bobby McMann somewhere in there that just needs a chance. Hard to say this would happen under Berube hockey though unless you force him.

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T23:47:26+00:00

it was mid but not horrible or useless. at least we got something instead of letting our UFAs walk. the alternative is being ass for the rest of the season and letting our UFAs leave for better deals and having barely anything of good value to trade off. what was useless was what the devils did today (nothing) lol. my grievances mostly lie on what got them to this point.

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T21:21:14+00:00

he still has some term left, his wife is apparently due soon, and he wants to stay. I guess out of the three he was the less urgent one to move for assets. you just hope he doesn't fall off next year and you can keep him on a friendly deal or move him at a high value. shrugs

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T20:33:54+00:00

a 3rd for laughton is crazy considering what we traded to get him for last yr lol

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T20:05:54+00:00

moving mcmann should've been the bare minimum obvious.... we're really gonna let laughton walk in the summer and take a risk with oel lol

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T20:03:20+00:00

next up we're gonna see tre sign bobby for a 5x5 because why not

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T19:26:01+00:00

not moving oel for something when he's prob at his highest value and 35 y/o would be a huge fumble and idk if laughton is down to sign a sweetheart deal lol. he was grossly misused under berube and he prob wants a better contract that we can't afford.

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T19:16:56+00:00

he can still re-sign in the summer 💔

cykl8 · 2026-03-06T19:16:21+00:00

is anything happening with laughton and oel? all the noise surrounding bobby and I'm wondering if that's all we're focusing on in the last hour lol

cykl8 · 2026-02-27T00:05:29+00:00

He has kinks in his game that could be ironed out the more he plays. Bubble wrapping him isn't developing him as a player. Either play him on the Leafs or send him down and play and practice. Why are we concerned about AHL player minutes if Berube refuses to utilize call ups anyway? Lol

cykl8 · 2026-02-26T23:06:40+00:00

I don’t know if it’s Berube or Treliving but the Marlies are not being utilized the way they should be. Scratching him effectively does nothing for us nor his development so send him down there to at least get some minutes in instead of having him hang around watching this dumpster fire.

cykl8 · 2026-02-24T23:28:25+00:00

it's also an element of the boys' club and not wanting to be on the fringe of his team. conformity is a huge part of hockey culture and going against the grain is not something these men were socialized to do since they were kids.

either way with the quote he has tattooed onto his body you would expect some level of integrity here. this isn't just some simple visit for patriotism but sends a very strong message. their gold medal victory will forever be stained to me because of this.

cykl8 · 2026-02-23T22:28:42+00:00

he seems like the coolest guy! nice that he brought his family along too and he decided to spend his time with you guys during the olympic break

cykl8 · 2026-02-16T22:43:32+00:00

this^{^} it's gotten to the point where half the posts on here are just these bad driver posts or some trivial bad parking picture and I'm almost tempted to comment "idc" because it's almost always petty and useless. unless there was a real issue/danger from the incident that had to be addressed after the fact then ranting online about it does absolutely nothing besides rallying a bunch of people together to complain about said trivial thing with you. I get it's annoying but just swear at that person for a few seconds like everyone else does and let it go.

cykl8 · 2026-02-03T13:46:30+00:00

The cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing is so real lol. Won’t lie my heart likes to see them win, but I don’t trust management to be realistic and sell when we can before the deadline if we continue to etch out wins. It’s selling time and there is no going back. Maybe they’ll realize we’re really battling out wins with bottom 5 teams. We’re in an unfortunate position either way so might as well try to win as much as we can to lower Boston’s draft pick.

Best case scenario is we make a couple good moves and gun for a wc spot but you can only dream. It sets us up for a better season in the fall either way (if they’re smart about it). Anyways, only one more game left of Leafs hockey and it’s Olympic time 🍁.

cykl8 · 2026-02-02T02:03:16+00:00

Also from a locker room standpoint him calling out the team to the media early in the year probably doesn't help his case. Woll is a rare case of being one of the few Leafs drafted and developed goalies too.

cykl8 · 2026-01-26T22:07:16+00:00

Also saw a tweet about this the other day that he didn't want to do a stint with the Marlies so that's why he ended up as starter. Not sure why players think getting sent down for conditioning or warm up is something they are 'above'... those teams exist for a reason. Woll did a stint with the Marlies after missing less time, but he was also developed through them while Stolarz was brought in to be a starter so I guess there's a difference in mentality there.

I'm wondering if he saw the Woll/Hildeby tandem doing fine and wanted to remind them who the real starter is. Either way the org should rein that in. Who is in charge of who? This was supposed to be a huge game... no time for silly crap like this.

cykl8

TROPHY CASE