SIMMONS SAYS: Playing in Toronto not as tough as many think

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THIS AND THAT

Berube was an enforcer of prominence in his NHL playing days. We know his background. We know what he believes in. It must have sickened the Leafs head coach to watch Radko Gudas take out his captain, Auston Matthews, and not have any of his players respond. The very fact there was no response was the worst moment in a rather terrible season. It also further indicates a disconnect between coach and players. There is no way Berube would not have responded if he were on the ice. His team didn’t. That looks bad on them, bad on the seething coach … The only advantage of Matthews being out for the season is the increased possibility of the Leafs regaining their 2026 first-round draft pick. They need to be bottom-five to have a chance of retaining the choice they traded to Boston in the Brandon Carlo disaster of a deal. So, the Leafs now need to move from eighth last in the NHL to fifth last — and teams below them such as St. Louis, New Jersey and the Rangers, are actually playing decent hockey right now … Since the Olympics came to an end, Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov have all scored 15 points. Kucherov won the scoring title the past two years, three of them in total in his career. McDavid has won five scoring crowns. MacKinnon, who finished second in each of the past two seasons, has never finished first in NHL scoring. The last month of the season has already become the great race among hockey’s finest talents … As of Saturday, MacKinnon and Kucherov are the 1-2 betting favourites to win the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP. Not far behind them, McDavid and the sophomore Macklin Celebrini … If you didn’t see the goal McDavid scored Friday night in St. Louis, take a moment to watch it. It was one of those moments you realize McDavid is playing a different game than everyone else in hockey … Love this quote from Mathew Barzal of the Islanders on the naïveté of players: “You think you’re in a good locker room until you’re in a good locker room.”

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jaylin Williams, left, and other Thunder players pour water on Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) after an NBA basketball game against the Boston Celtics on March 12, 2026, in Oklahoma City. Photo by Nate Billings /The Associated Press

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HEAR AND THERE

The amazing Canadian, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, just keeps making headlines. The latest: Passing Wilt Chamberlain and every other NBA player of all time by scoring 20 points or more in a game for 127 straight games. That’s almost two entire seasons of scoring 20 or more for SGA. Chamberlain set the mark 63 years ago when he was 7-foot-2 playing against centres mostly five inches shorter. To put SGA’s mark into some kind of perspective, consider this: Kawhi Leonard has scored 20-plus points 44 straight times in his career. Vince Carter has done it for 23 games, Chris Bosh for only five. DeMar DeRozan’s number is 13. Most impressed by SGA’s streak is the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic, whose longest 20-point streak in the past two seasons was 31 games … 83: That is either the number of points Bam Adebayo scored on Tuesday night in Miami or the number of points Leafs will finish the season with … Can’t believe there is any controversy over Adebayo’s career night, the second-highest scoring single game in NBA history. Some have even suggested he should have stopped scoring at 81 points, so as not to pass Kobe Bryant, who scored that many against the Raptors in 2006. And some have criticized his coach, Erik Spoelstra, for leaving Adebayo in the game too long. Why can’t we just enjoy a remarkable night from an unlikely scorer? … Adebayo, by the way, is living with A’ja Wilson, the four-time MVP of the WNBA … Highly recommend the book The Last Manager by John W. Miller. It’s about Earl Weaver and his fascinating rise to prominence as manager of the Baltimore Orioles … What’s been most impressive about the career of Jose Berrios is his annual consistency. He has started 30 or more games for seven of the past eight seasons. His career earned run average is 4.08. I know he has an elbow problem right now and I know he’s seeing a specialist for it, but if there’s any chance of him coming back, I’d bet on Berrios. His pedigree says so … The babying of Trey Yesavage is baffling heading through spring training and into the season. He pitched at every level possible last year, started in the playoffs and World Series, came out in relief, did everything asked of him. And he hasn’t thrown a game in spring training? Isn’t this something of an indictment of the way young pitchers are prepared — or aren’t prepared — in today’s game?

SCENE AND HEARD

The 10 lost years of the Maple Leafs building to contention can be better understood when you consider who played defence for the club in its nine playoff seasons. Here is the list of defencemen with playoffs games played: Morgan Rielly (70), Jake McCabe (31), T.J. Brodie (26), Justin Holl (25), Jake Muzzin (22), Travis Dermott (22), Jake Gardiner (20), Simon Benoit (20), Nikita Zaitsev (18), Mark Giordano (18), Ron Hainsey (14), Ilya Lyubushkin (14), Timothy Liljegren (13), Chris Tanev (13), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (13), Brandon Carlo (13), Luke Schenn (11), Roman Polak (9), Martin Marincin (9), Zach Bogosian (7), Joel Edmundson (7), Matt Hunwick (6), Connor Carrick (6), Tyson Barrie (5), Cody Ceci (5), Rasmus Sandin (5) and Erik Gustafsson (2) … There’s not an Alex Pietrangelo, Victor Hedman, Cale Makar, Kris Letang or Duncan Keith on that list. There’s hardly a Niklas Hjalmarsson, either … Nine years of playoff goaltending: The starters were Frederik Andersen, Jack Campbell, Ilya Samsonov, Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz. Probably not good enough most playoff years … That’s nothing like Sergei Bobrovsky or Andrei Vasilevskiy — with four Cups between them — but rather similar to Adin Hill or Jordan Binnington as Stanley Cup-winners … The best teams not to win Stanley Cups this past decade: Carolina, Dallas, Edmonton, Toronto, Boston … Teams with a chance to win this year, in order: Colorado, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Carolina, Edmonton and Buffalo … The Sabres, since firing GM Kevyn Adams, are 26-6-2. That’s rather crazy … I hear this all the time: The Leafs need a great GM. The Canucks need a great GM. The Jets need a great GM. So, where are the great GMs? Who are the Bill Torreys and Harry Sindens and Cliff Fletchers in today’s NHL? In Florida, there is Bill Zito in Sunrise and Julien BriseBois in Tampa. There is Kelly McCrimmon in Vegas and Jim Nill in Dallas. Then you look at Bill Guerin in Minnesota and Chris MacFarland in Colorado and the combination of Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes in Montreal. The other 25 GMs, to use the Randy Carlyle term, are just OK. It’s a tough world to stand out in — harder than ever before — and most of it is done without the personalities and characters of days gone by.

AND ANOTHER THING

What an unusual and stirring event the World Baseball Classic happens to be. Teams look as if they’re just pieced together and sometimes play like it. But the drama, you put on your country’s jersey and it unfolds naturally. On Friday night, the underdog Canadians were trailing Team USA 5-3 with runners on second and third and their two best hitters going to the plate in the seventh inning. What an opportunity for Josh Naylor and Tyler O’Neill to become national figures of some kind. Unfortunately, Naylor popped out and O’Neill struck out, and there went the great upset for Team Canada. Naylor has had three 20-home run seasons in the big leagues while O’Neill has twice hit 30. Needed that home run on Friday night … Blue Jays’ Jeff Hoffman is joining Team USA for the semifinal round, which means, officially, Clayton Kershaw’s wonderful career has come to an end … Weird thing about the WBC: Ticket pricing from game to game. To buy tickets online recently, you could get a seat for the Netherlands versus Israel for $6 apiece. For Dominican Republic vs. Venezuela, the ticket prices started at around $300 per ducat … Sunday night decision for fans of both movies and baseball: What do you watch: The U.S. vs the Dominican Republic semifinal — Hoffman and Ernie Clement vs. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — or the Academy Awards? … James Duthie does a wonderful job hosting the annual Hockey Hall of Fame inductions. What he can’t do is get inducted himself by winning the Foster Hewitt Award for broadcasters. The small minds who run the NHL Broadcasters Association award only play-by-play men and colour analysts for their largest acknowledgement. They told me they were going to change their entry requirements this year but they didn’t. Why commissioner Gary Bettman allows this — or hasn’t stepped in to put pressure on the Broadcasters Association is another matter entirely. Bettman is in the Hall himself, speaks at the Hall annually and loves doing so. He does so standing beside Duthie, all the while knowing that the man next to him is ineligible for the Foster Hewitt. Should the broadcasters open the award to those who should qualify, hosts and between-periods commentators, it should mean Hall of Fame places for Dave Hodge, Duthie, Barry Melrose and maybe Don Cherry. However you put it, though, the current structure is wrong … Department of Weird Statistics: Since Feb. 1, Leafs’ Matias Maccelli, with seven, is tied for sixth in NHL goal-scoring, one behind Kirill Kaprizov, Martin Necas, Matt Boldy and Pavel Dorofeyev and three behind Cutter Gauthier. Go figure … Matthews’ agent, Judd Moldaver, is right. The five-game suspension for Gudas was preposterous. It should have been way more. What’s also preposterous: Paying Matthews the second highest salary in the NHL when he’s no longer a top-10 NHL player … More bad news for the Leafs. Not a single player was listed on Craig Button’s top-50 prospects list just released on TSN. And, according to sources, not a single player was even close to making the list. Button is not particularly big on defence prospect Ben Danford, whom the Leafs drafted late in the first round in 2024 … Don’t know why Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse isn’t getting more love in coach-of-the-year talk in the NHL. I don’t know of anyone who saw the Penguins as a playoff team this season and here they are, playing at close to a 100-point pace. Not sure any NHL coach has done more with less than the little-known Muse has managed this season … Happy birthday to Darcy Tucker (51), Steph Curry (38), James Reimer (38), Mike Tomlin (54), Simone Biles (29), Mark Scheifele (33), J.T. Miller (33), Vaclav Nedomansky (82), Billy Crystal (78), Dave McKay (76) and Harold Baines (67) … And hey, whatever became of Mike Milbury?

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