SIMMONS: Swayman holdout could aid Leafs’ challenge for first in Atlantic

The longer Jeremy Swayman remains unsigned, the better it is for the optimistic Maple Leafs.

For all the Leafs have accomplished in regular seasons — their real strength of the Brendan Shanahan era — they have been nowhere close to first place in the Atlantic Division. The division that has sent a team to the Stanley Cup final six years in a row.

Florida has played for the Cup twice the past two years, winning once. Tampa Bay played for the Cup recently, winning two championships. The Bruins lost in 2019 to St. Louis, which still doesn’t seem possible. And Montreal, then of the COVID-year Northern Division, played for the championship.

The Leafs need to finish first in the Atlantic Division — the best division in hockey — to have their best shot at any kind of playoff advancement.

They need to start doing that now, right at the beginning of the season, when the Bruins might be without Swayman, their No. 1 goalie, the Panthers might be suffering from Stanley Cup hangover and the Lightning, without captain Steven Stamkos, may also take time to find themselves.

In the past six Atlantic Division seasons, the Leafs have finished second twice and third four times. This is their time, with a deeper defence, with goaltending depth, with a new coach in Craig Berube, to stop playing the part of top-heavy also-ran and take a run at first place.

Swayman is one of the best goalies in hockey. The Bruins need him to be just that with a diminishing roster. Boston has twice finished first in recent years, Florida twice, Tampa twice. The Leafs need to be looking at first place in the Atlantic from the day the season starts in Montreal on Wednesday and the day it ends at home in mid-April.

During Mark Shapiro’s rather annoying end-of-season press availability, he did reference the late Pete Rose when asked about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. being a generational hitter. Guerrero ended the season with a career-high 199 hits and Shapiro went on to call Rose a generational hitter and point out that he had 22 200-hit seasons in his career. That was his comparison, which was a nice compliment — just terribly inaccurate. Rose had 200 hits in a season 10 times in his career, not 22. Poor Shapiro can’t even get his analogies right … What would it take for Ross Atkins to be fired as Jays general manager? The San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds all won more games than the Jays this season, and all of them have changed GMs, front office people with GM-like titles, or managers … Among Atkins’ strengths, according to Shapiro and Atkins: Player acquisitions. They must have forgotten about the signing of the diminishing asset, George Springer; the Teoscar Hernandez trade to Seattle for Erik Swanson; the deal that sent Gabriel Moreno to Arizona. Guess those never really happened … Gord Ash and J.P. Ricciardi were hardly popular GMs of the Jays. Especially at the end of their terms. But they were hugely popular in and around the city and the country when compared with how Shapiro and Atkins are viewed right now. Not even the late Rob Babcock or the semi-competent John Ferguson Jr. were viewed with the kind of disdain reserved for Shapiro and Atkins today … Vladdy was a top-five hitter in baseball this season on a bottom-five offence. The Jays ended up 13th in home runs in the American League, 10th in runs scored. They’d better sign Guerrero or those numbers will drop even further … Two more Jays stats of significance: One, their bullpen gave up the most home runs in all of baseball, 10 more than that of the 41-win Chicago White Sox. Run differential is a stat that matters to the tall front-office foreheads in baseball. The Jays finished 219 runs behind the New York Yankees and 154 runs behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East. In 2015, the most recent time they won the AL East, they led baseball at +221 and they were +106 and +98 in their World Series years. This season: Minus-72. That’s the team Shapiro and Atkins thought could win the World Series … Since 2017, the only AL teams to not win a single playoff game: The Blue Jays, the Angels and Orioles.

Mickey Mantle came up with the nickname: Charley Hustle. He saw Rose play with all of his intensity during an exhibition game in Florida and said rather sarcastically: “Look at Charley Hustle over there.” Rose took it as a compliment. He was known as Charley Hustle the rest of his career, even after he was banned from baseball … When Rose retired, he had played the most games of all-time, been to bat the most times, had the most hits of anyone who ever played. The number of hits he ended up with 4,256 — 67 more than Ty Cobb, 485 more than Hank Aaron — isn’t just significant for the figure itself, but also for the history of the number. Jackie Robinson’s jersey number was 42. Joe DiMaggio’s famous hit streak was 56 games. Put them together and you have Rose’s hit totals … Rose was banned from baseball for life for gambling on the game. He could have come clean and lessened his sentence, but was too stubborn to do that. Instead, in his later years, he used to sign baseballs that fans paid extra for. They read: “Sorry, I bet on baseball. Pete Rose.” The promoters called them apology balls … Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball does not end because he passed away last Monday. The Baseball Hall of Fame contends he is still not eligible, posthumously, to be elected to the Hall in any way.

It’s wonderful that Nick Robertson is scoring in the pre-season for the Leafs. It’s also somewhat meaningless. The phone book is filled with those who have scored pre-season goals in hockey and have never been heard from again … The challenge for the Leafs: Finding the right way to deploy Robertson. He has top-six hands but will mostly be used by coach Berube in bottom-six circumstances … I hope the NHL doesn’t go to 84 regular season games as is being talked about. I like 82, even though I think it’s still too many. But certain statistics, such as scoring 50 goals and earning 100 points, will change if the league increases the number of games on the schedule … I’m in favour of all but eliminating pre-season games in every sport except baseball. In football nobody plays because everybody is worried about injuries. This rare NHL pre-season, there were all kinds of injuries. It’s not worth overreacting to one set of circumstances when it hasn’t been that way in earlier years …. These are amazing times for the old guys Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, who have spent the past 19 seasons battling back and forth. Ovechkin is 42 goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky for the career scoring lead. Ovie has 853 NHL goals. The goals race among other active players: Crosby at 592, Steven Stamkos at 555 and Evgeni Malkin 362 goals behind Ovie at 491. Former Leafs captain John Tavares is sixth among active players at 456 … In combining goals and assists, Gretzky remains 936 points ahead of anyone else who has ever played and is 1,261 points ahead of Crosby, the current active leader …. If you combine World Hockey Association stats with NHL stats, which isn’t officially done, Gordie Howe leads all goal-scorers with 975, Gretzky second at 940, Bobby Hull third at 913. Not sure that Ovechkin could ever pass Howe or Gretzky if WHA goals were part of official statistics … The early-season scorecard among new NHL coaches: Sheldon Keefe 2, Lindy Ruff 0.

The best free-agent bats available — Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, Anthony Santander, Eugenio Suarez and Christian Walker — will be heavily recruited by the Mets, Giants, Cubs, Nationals, Mariners and Yankees. The Jays will have to overpay in money and term to get any one of them and you can basically scratch Soto from the Jays wish list … Should the Jays consider Houston’s Alex Bregman or Yankees’ Gleyber Torres for infield spots? They may have to … Terry Francona has come out of retirement to manage Cincinnati, which means look for the Reds to contend next season. Francona, Bruce Bochy and the now retired Dusty Baker have histories winning everywhere they have been … There are 86 free-agent relief pitchers in baseball and that number will grow in the coming weeks. And honestly, do you trust Atkins to sign the right ones for the Jays? … The Swayman negotiations in Boston have been handled badly from both ends. The Bruins had the opportunity after arbitration last year to sign Swayman for two years. They only signed him for only one. Now Swayman wants Carey Price money without yet showing Carey Price credentials. This one should be easy to meet in the middle: Eight years, around $8.5 million for Swayman. You don’t overpay a goalie with only 125 NHL starts … The old NFL coach, Jim Fassel, once told me: “Show me a great head coach and I’ll show you a great quarterback.” Bill Belichick won with Tom Brady and lost when he didn’t. Mike McDaniel looked like one of the great young coaches in the NFL when he had Tua Tagovailoa taking snaps. The Dolphins and McDaniel have looked lost since Tua went down with an injury … Don Shula, by the way, had Johnny Unitas, Earl Morrall, Bob Griese and Dan Marino — three of them in the Hall of Fame — as his quarterbacks for 32 straight years in Baltimore or Miami.

Canadian Brady Oliveira has rushed and caught the football for 1,678 yards this CFL season, which puts him in the favourite’s seat for Most Outstanding Player with three weeks to go in the regular season. Winnipeg has won eight games in a row and it’s sure looking like a Blue Bombers-Montreal Alouettes Grey Cup is coming next month in Vancouver. Then again, it sure looked like an Argos Grey Cup at this time last year and that didn’t happen … Don’t know what’s worse: Paying big money for a soccer game Lionel Messi isn’t playing in, or paying big money to watch the disaster that is Toronto FC? … The average payroll in Major League Soccer is just more than $17 million. The TFC payroll is $32 million, and for that the Reds have the third worst goal differential in the game … When I’m driving somewhere in the afternoon, I miss Jeff Marek on my radio … What’s in a name? Cam Ward won a Stanley Cup with Carolina. Cam Ward might win a Heisman Trophy at the U of Miami this season and go early in next year’s NFL draft … Looking forward to reading Mike Keenan’s book. If he’s as honest, caustic and occasionally bombastic as Keenan can be, it should make for fascinating hockey reading … Mississauga’s Josh Naylor doesn’t get enough noise for all he’s doing in baseball. Naylor hit 31 home runs and 108 RBIs with the Cleveland Guardians. That’s one more HR and five more RBIs than Guerrero had with the Jays … The NFL Players’ Association, the weakest union in all of major league sports, is pushing to get rid of reporters in the locker room, which is one of the great minor issues of our time. How about pushing something important, such as better pensions for retired players, guaranteed contracts for current players, better medical attention for injuries something that actually matters in the short careers football players have … Someone out there didn’t vote for Caitlin Clark first on their their rookie-of-the-year ballot. That someone should be identified … Happy birthday to Mario Lemieux (59), Patrick Roy (59), Alfredo Griffin (77), Nazem Kadri (34), Travis Kelce (35), Jesse Palmer (46), Daniel Briere (47), Jake Guentzel (30), Grant Hill (52), Tony Dungy (69), Bill James (75), Michael Andretti (62) and Jean Perron (78) … And hey, whatever became of Jonathan Bernier?

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