Team Tank would prefer the Maple Leafs extend their losing skid Tuesday, when Treliving\u2019s most criticized move will be on full display.<\/p>\n
Whip-smart Minten has bulked up. He is in the throes of a breakout campaign, his first full one in the show. His 70 games, 16 goals, and 31 points are all career highs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minten\u2019s plus-22 rating leads all Bruins forwards. And he\u2019s now centring playoff-bound Boston\u2019s top line. David Pastrnak is on the man\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n
Boston coach Marco Sturm has likened Minten to another two-way pivot, L.A.\u2019s Quinton Byfield, in the way the centre thinks the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of things you can\u2019t teach,\u201d Sturm told reporters of Minten\u2019s hockey IQ, which was also raved about in Toronto. \u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s ahead of some other guys. He already had it. Even the teaching part, he gets it right away. He just has it. He\u2019s lucky enough to be born with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The flip side of the Minten trade, Carlo, has heard the criticism and admitted to reporters in Toronto on Monday that the fan base\u2019s angst over move has been \u201ca little bit\u201d tough on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re gonna be in the NHL environment, there\u2019s gonna be a lot of things you need to tune out throughout your career,\u201d Carlo said. \u201cJust put it in the category with most of those things and continue forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"32](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/32THOUGHTS_500X500_ICON_V2-500x360.jpg\"){kind=icon}
32 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n
Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n
Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n Could the prospect-light Maple Leafs, who recently traded away depth centres Nicolas Roy and Scott Laughton, benefit from the service of the emerging Minten? No doubt.<\/p>\n To be fair, Carlo has battled a foot injury this season and has consistently professed his appreciation and desire to be a Leaf. He\u2019s also under contract for a team-friendly $3.49-million cap hit next season, which makes him a valuable contributor if they get back in the mix and a valuable trade asset if they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s this nugget, which may surprise some: The Maple Leafs, at minus-29, have the worst goal differential in the Eastern Conference. Carlo (plus-9) is the only Leafs defenceman (minimum 12 games played) who has been on the ice for as many more goals for as goals against (36-36), despite starting only 45 per cent of his shifts in the offensive zone.<\/p>\n Carlo hasn\u2019t hurt his new team.\u00a0<\/p>\n The catch is that where the Maple Leafs find themselves now \u2014 in search of picks, young impact players and centre depth \u2014 Carlo\u2019s best game can\u2019t make up for all of that.<\/p>\n Carlo is the rare player who has seen both sides of the Toronto-Boston rivalry. He predicts a competitive affair Tuesday, standings be damned.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know it\u2019s going to be physical,\u201d Carlo said.<\/p>\n And, because of their link, you know both Carlo and Minten will be scrutinized in this one.<\/p>\n Stolarz rebounds from Nylander scare<\/p>\n Despite Saturday\u2019s unplanned visit to an Ottawa hospital and Monday\u2019s recall of third-stringer Dennis Hildeby on an emergency basis, Anthony Stolarz<\/a> is expected to start one half of this week\u2019s back-to-back. (Coach Craig Berube hasn\u2019t declared whether that\u2019ll be in Boston, site of Stolarz\u2019s original neck injury this season, or Wednesday at home versus the New York Rangers.)<\/p>\n An errant William Nylander<\/a> warm-up shot caught the goaltender in the throat, making it difficult for him to breathe or talk for 30 or 40 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stolarz, who recovered from a nerve issue in his neck shortly before the Olympic break, went for imaging to make sure blood vessels weren\u2019t damaged. He was cleared by the buzzer and traveled home with the club.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d Stolarz told reporters in Toronto, after practising with some new neck protection. \u201cIt\u2019s an occupational hazard. You get pucks coming at you anywhere from 70 to 100 miles an hour, they\u2019re gonna catch you in a bad spot once in a while. Just kinda shock.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nylander checked in on Stolarz immediately after his mistake and followed up with text messages before leaving Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cI have certain spots where I shoot it, so they know where I’m shooting it all the time,\u201d says Nylander, who was aiming glove. \u201cExcept for maybe the last shot we do in the half-moon, maybe you try to score. But other than that, I\u2019m always doing the same shot.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel really bad for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Accidents happen. No real harm done.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s good. It\u2019s a one-off,\u201d Stolarz said, shaking off the incident with a smile.<\/p>\n During the broadcast, Sportsnet analyst Craig Simpson suggested the onus is on Nylander to control his aim. A couple goaltenders we spoke to, though, suggested that goalies must never let their neck be exposed during shooting drills.<\/p>\n Soccer players cover their most sensitive bits when building a wall to block free kicks.<\/p>\n Auston Matthews even gave Stolarz a bit of advice: \u201cNext time, keep your chin tucked.\u201d<\/p>\n One-Timers:\u00a0Morgan Rielly<\/a> missed Saturday\u2019s game in Ottawa due to a lower-body injury but returned to practice Monday and was a full participant\u2026. Oliver Ekman-Larsson<\/a> left practice early because \u201csomething was bugging him,\u201d according to Berube. The coach assures the durable defenceman will be fine to play Tuesday\u2026. Joseph Woll<\/a> says he never took so many pucks in the head as he did Saturday in Ottawa: three. \u201cMy poor mask was taking a beating,\u201d he chuckled. \u201cIt broke. We fixed it. It broke again. Check my brain after that game. That\u2019s the most I\u2019ve gotten hit in the head for sure.\u201d\u2026 The Maple Leafs mentors\u2019 trip is going down in Boston.<\/p>\n Maple Leafs’ projected lineup Tuesday in Boston:<\/p>\n Forwards Defence
Cowan \u2013 Tavares \u2013 Nylander
Knies \u2013 Domi \u2013 Robertson
Maccelli \u2013 Groulx \u2013 Joshua
Lorentz \u2013 Quillan \u2013 J\u00e4rnkrok<\/p>\n
Rielly \u2013 Carlo
McCabe \u2013 Stecher\u00a0
Benoit \u2013 Myers\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Round 1 playoff preview perhaps. A measuring stick for two Eastern Conference titans. A civic referendum on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-557610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}