A few weeks after being drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tinus Luc Koblar is soaking up his time in the city.

The 17-year-old forward was one of 48 players at Toronto's development camp this week, skating as the team's highest selection (second-round, 64th overall) in this year's draft. Almost immediately after stepping onto the ice, Koblar's size and skating appeared comparable to that of former Maple Leaf Pierre Engvall.

Koblar calls himself a two-way center and playmaker, who is effective at both ends of the rink. Despite this being a development camp with many larger players this year, Koblar's 6-foot-3 frame appears evident against others at the camp.

"Tinus is a strong player with good size," said Leksands IF  junior manager Jesper Ollas. "He is strong on the puck and can create situations based on that, both for himself and for others... He reads the game well and has developed his defensive qualities very well during the past year when he started playing center."

One of the knocks about Koblar's game is his speed within smaller areas of the rink. He's a physically imposing player, but when the forward needs to beat his opponent to the puck, he's often a bit behind.

A first-look at Maple Leafs 2025 second-round pick Tinus Luc Koblar at development camp. pic.twitter.com/lbR3QQS7e5

— Nick Barden (@nickbarden) July 3, 2025

Koblar understands that that part of his game needs to improve, though. He revealed on Thursday that he plans to work on getting stronger and more explosive this summer ahead of another season with Leksands IF in Sweden.

"He picks up good speed on longer distances," Ollas added, "but his challenges are to be faster and quicker in small areas."

Aside from the physical attributes that Koblar possesses, you can immediately see how much of a competitor he is. Never does he quit on a drill, nor does the forward not give 100 percent, even when it comes to his off-ice work, too.

"His absolute strength is his mindset," Ollas said. "He competes in every situation and always wants to be the best, whether it is on or off the ice."

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Victor Johansson, a teammate of Koblar's in Sweden, who was drafted by the Maple Leafs in the fourth round (120th overall) of the 2024 NHL Draft, was ecstatic when he watched Koblar's name pop up on the TV when Torotno was picking.

 "Just that he gets drafted to the same place as me was just hilarious. I love it. I started to scream when he got drafted here because I got so happy," Johansson said, with a smile so large you couldn't wipe it off his face.

Johansson and Koblar had just finished an on-ice session. After the entire group finished up on the ice, the two Leksands teammates stayed on, feeding pucks back and forth before slamming them into a net.

"Do you want us to get off?" Koblar asked with a smile to one of the arena staff who was standing behind the glass, waiting to zamboni the ice.

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The two are great teammates and get along quite well off the ice too.

"I thought I was going to be the only Swede here, couldn't talk Swedish, so I was like, 'Yeah, you guys (the Leafs) want to draft Tinus, yeah?'" Johansson grinned. "And then it happened, so really happy and how he is as a teammate is, great guy overall, very competitive, and a really good hockey player."

When Johansson watches Koblar on the ice or battles him in practices in Sweden, what immediately catches his eye is his smoothness as a skater. "To be that tall and to go around guys like he does, you can't find that in everyone."

There's a lot to like about the Maple Leafs drafting someone like Koblar. If he develops, the towering forward could be the perfect player Toronto took a chance on in the second round of the 2025 Draft.

It will take time, though.

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Koblar is going to return to Sweden and play another season there rather than coming over to North America, where his CHL rights belong to the OHL's Brampton Steelheads. There's no sense of rushing the player into anything, especially when he's still not even 18 (his birthday is on July 21).

"It's a great community and the levels, like J-18, J-20, and the A team, it's really super close, so it's not that hard to go between them," Koblar said of his choice to remain in Sweden. "The trainers and the staff is always helping you to develop and they just want you to be at your best."

With two Olympian parents—his mom a biathlete and his dad an alpine skier—there's a lot of competitiveness in his genes. Koblar doesn't like losing as much as anyone, adding that his parents have taught him a lot about being a high-competition athlete.

That could turn into a massive positive for Toronto in the long run.

"[They taught me] just the importance of putting in the work and don't take any chances for granted, and do 100 percent every time."

(Top photo: Nick Barden / The Hockey News Toronto)

Over the 116 years that the Montreal Canadiens have been in operation, several American players have worn the bleu, blanc, rouge. Since the USA celebrated Independence Day earlier this week, let’s take a closer look at the Americans who left their mark in Canadiens history.

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Chris Nilan

While some would list the highest-scoring Americans as the best players, offensive production shouldn’t be the only criterion. To me, one particular player who certainly wasn’t a top scorer played an essential part in the Canadiens’ history: Chris Nilan. The Boston native was a 19th-round pick at the 1979 draft, the 231st selection overall, and nobody could have known back then that he would go on to play 688 games in the NHL. His career spanned over 13 years in the league, 10 of which were spent with the Canadiens.

While he could play hockey (he picked up 225 points), Knuckles, as he was aptly nicknamed, racked up 3043 penalty minutes in the NHL, including 2248 with the Canadiens. Nilan was always there to protect his teammates and never backed down from a fight. Still, the 175 points he picked up in his 523 games with the Habs make him the team’s 95th top scorer of all time with 88 goals and 87 assists.

There’s no denying that he was more than an agitator. Nilan could also score and was a wonderful blend of grit, dedication, and skills. In 1985-86, when the Habs won their 23rd Stanley Cup, Nilan scored 19 goals. The tough guy liked Montreal so much that he stayed in town after retiring and lives there years later.

Max Pacioretty

His stay in Montreal didn’t end well, as there were rumours that he requested a trade, but he remains the highest-scoring American in team history. With 226 goals and 222 assists, he sits 30th in team history with 448 points.

In a bleak offensive era, Pacioretty often was a ray of sunshine, and he put up five seasons of 30-plus goals. I have a lot of respect for the left winger. When he was just a youngster and getting very little ice time in the NHL, he asked to be sent down to the AHL because he felt he needed more ice time to develop correctly.

Of course, you can’t talk about Pacioretty without talking about Zdeno Chara and the hit that sent the former Hab down on the ice motionless, in one of the most worrying moments in franchise history. Thankfully, the injury wasn’t as bad as feared, but that moment took the Canadiens-Boston Bruins rivalry up a notch. More of a quiet leader, it felt like the captain’s C ended up being a burden for the player; he was suited to score goals, but not to speak to journalists on a daily basis.

Chris Chelios

The one that got away. The defenseman won a Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1985-86 and the James Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman once with the Sainte-Flanelle. His 64 points as a rookie defenseman in 1984-85 stood as a record mark until last season, when Lane Hutson finally broke it, scoring 66 points.

When he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Denis Savard on June 29, 1990, it was because GM Serge Savard was advised that he had weak knees and probably wouldn’t have a very long career. That was a very poor assessment, considering he spent 26 years in the NHL, not just seven in Montreal.

Still, during his short stay, he played 402 games with the Tricolore and scored 309 points, including 14 game-winning goals, while also accumulating 783 penalty minutes. He is currently the 47th highest-scoring Canadiens of all time, and he comes in eighth place when it comes to defensemen. At 6 feet and 190 pounds, the rugged defenseman feared nothing and no one.

With the Hawks, he would go on to win two more Norris Trophies before being traded to the Detroit Red Wings at the trade deadline in March 1999. With the Wings, he would go on to win two more Stanley Cups, and he eventually retired as a member of the defunct Atlanta Thrashers. In the end, he put up 948 points, making him the top-scoring Canadiens’ defenseman of all time, with Larry Robinson holding 883 points. However, Robinson achieved this in 1202 games, which raises the question of how many points Chelios could have had if he hadn’t been traded.

Mathieu Schneider

Uncle Sam’s country has been a good producer of defensemen for the Canadiens, as it also gave us Schneider. Just like Chelios, he had a very long and prolific career skating in the NHL for 21 years, eight of which were spent with the Canadiens. Montreal drafted him 44th overall at the 1987 draft, in the third round. While he was born in New York, Schneider’s mother was French-Canadian from Thetford Mines, Quebec, who must have been over the moon when he was drafted by one of the two Quebec teams (the Quebec Nordiques still explained back then).

In his 383 games with the Montreal Canadiens, he accumulated 216 points and won the Stanley Cup in 1992-93, the team’s 24th and last victory to date. He is 78th in all-time scoring with the Canadiens and was recently overtaken by sniper Cole Caufield, who now has 219 points. When he was traded to the New York Islanders along with Kirk Muller and Craig Darby, the Canadiens were able to acquire Pierre Turgeon and defenseman Vladimir Malakhov.

Craig Ludwig

The left-shot defenseman was a Canadiens’ third-round pick at the 1980 draft. Ludwig wasn’t an offensive defenseman, and he wasn’t a flashy pick, but he turned out to be a very reliable blueliner with a mean streak.

He spent eight years in Montreal, skating in 597 games and accumulating 137 points, along with 619 penalty minutes. While he only put up one point in the 1985-86 playoffs that culminated in the Canadiens’ 23rd Stanley Cup Championship, he played an integral part in the conquest.

Many other names could have made the list, including Brian Gionta, John Leclair, and Francis Bouillon, but I felt those five were solid picks. Interestingly, Alexander Galchenyuk is 59th in points in Canadiens’ history with 255, while former defenseman Jeff Petry is 63rd with 248. Cole Caufield should overtake them both before the end of the 2025-26 season, as he already has 219 points, surpassing Lane Hutson, who is currently in the top 200 scorers with 66 points. Caufield should soon rocket up those standings. If someone does this exercise in a few years, they should all easily make the list.

Photo credit: Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images

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The NHL Draft is in the books, and we are four days removed from the opening of NHL free agency. Every significant unrestricted free agent is off the board, leaving the trade market as the only option for teams looking to meaningfully improve before the start of the 2025-26 season.

The Anaheim Ducks are among those teams, as their stated goal is to make the playoffs in 2025-26 and end the NHL’s third-longest playoff drought.

Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek had been busy between the end of the regular season and the opening of free agency. He replaced Greg Cronin with Joel Quenneville behind the bench, acquired Chris Kreider from the New York Rangers, traded Trevor Zegras to the Philadelphia Flyers, and traded John Gibson to the Detroit Red Wings.

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Between the end of the draft on June 28 and the opening of free agency on July 1, most of the free agent class had been signed to new contracts, leaving a slim inventory for GMs to choose from.

Heading into the offseason, the Ducks had $38.69 million in cap space (the third-most in the NHL), a mandate to make the playoffs, and the green light to spend as much as it took to achieve that goal.

Around the NHL, two of the most common needs were top-nine centers and goaltenders. With the benefit of hindsight (foresight for most) and the ability to see how the free agent and trade markets have played out to date, it’s more than fair to question Verbeek’s timing and leveraging when it comes to some of the biggest moves and lack of moves he’s made this offseason.

The Trevor Zegras Trade

On June 23, the Ducks traded Zegras to the Flyers in exchange for depth center Ryan Poehling, a second-round pick, and a fourth-round pick.

Trevor Zegras’ name had been featured in every media outlet’s list of potential trade candidates for a year and a half, since Jamie Drysdale was traded in Jan. 2024, with varying reported degrees of actual interest expressed by Verbeek to move on from the talented forward.

Zegras followed up back-to-back 60-plus point seasons to start his NHL career with three major injuries, a difficult contract negotiation, and two seasons of less-than-stellar point-per-game totals, leaving Zegras’ value at its lowest point.

It’s become abundantly clear that Zegras was never in Verbeek’s long-term plans for the Ducks organization. If the goal was to maximize potential value in a return, allowing Zegras to play under a coach like Joel Quenneville for a few months, who had previous success with players of a similar mold (Patrick Kane and Jonathan Huberdeau, specifically), could have fetched Anaheim an impact player at a position of need as part of a hockey trade or a considerable haul of future assets.

If the intention was to remove Zegras from the roster at some point during the summer, simply waiting eight days would have considerably boosted his return, as most marquee free agent centers, such as Sam Bennett, John Tavares, and Brock Nelson, re-signed with their clubs before free agency opened. There wasn’t enough supply to satisfy the market’s demand.

The Flyers, Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators, and Minnesota Wild had either been confirmed or rumored to have been in the market for an upgrade down the middle.

Verbeek seemingly failed to leverage the market and create a bidding war. Instead, he accepted an underwhelming return for a player with proven production at the highest level.

The John Gibson Trade

On day two of the NHL Draft, June 28, the Ducks traded goaltender John Gibson to the Red Wings in exchange for goaltender Petr Mrazek, a second-round pick, and a fourth-round pick.

Similarly, but possibly to an even greater extent, Gibson’s name had been in trade rumors, speculations, and discussions for the past several offseasons. There had been confirmation that Gibson desired to play elsewhere, and the Ducks were on the lookout for a deal that made sense for both parties.

The aspects preventing a prior trade of the talented 31-year-old goaltender were five consecutive seasons with poor numbers from 2019 to 2024, a contract that carried a cap hit of $6.4 million, an unwillingness from the Ducks to retain on that cap hit, and uncertainty in regards to Gibson’s health.

The 2025 offseason seemed to paint Gibson in a different light. The salary cap ceiling was set to increase drastically for the first time in five years, his numbers returned to respectability, and the supply of goaltenders available was incredibly thin.

The Flyers, Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Carolina Hurricanes, and Edmonton Oilers were all rumored or reported at one point or another to have been in the market for an upgrade in net.

After years of holding out for a considerable return, drawing a hard line in the sand, and just when Gibson’s value had increased, Verbeek pulled the trigger on a trade, probably a week too soon (again), and accepted an underwhelming return.

Free Agency

On the first day of free agency, Verbeek made a splash, filling a need and acquiring one of the top names on the market when he inked versatile forward Mikael Granlund to a three-year contract that carries an AAV of $7 million. Not a bad way to kick off the NHL free agency period.

However, after day one, the Ducks still could have used an impact forward at the top of the lineup, and the only one remaining on the free agent market was Nikolaj Ehlers, a player whose speed, skill, and tenacity would have nicely complemented the young talent in the Ducks’ top-six.

On July 3, Ehlers inked a six-year contract with the Carolina Hurricanes that carries an AAV of $8.5 million. It’s a hefty price for a player with a checkered injury history, but his production rates are through the roof for a player who never got considerable ice time at the top of the Winnipeg Jets lineup.

Following the San Jose Sharks acquisitions of Dmitry Orlov and Nick Leddy on Thursday morning, the Ducks had the most available cap space in the NHL by the time Ehlers signed his contract. The Ducks were reportedly interested in Ehlers, but it’s unclear if they made a competitive offer.

If the goal for the organization is to make the playoffs in 2025-26, there’s one impact player on the market, and the organization has the most cap space in the league, this seemed like the perfect time and the perfect player to “overpay” for to improve the roster. Especially after Verbeek’s history of seemingly overpaying players like Radko Gudas and Alex Killorn enough to get them to join Anaheim.

Looking Ahead

The only remaining avenues available to Verbeek when it comes to improving the Ducks roster before the start of the 2025-26 season are through the rare utilization of offer sheets and through trade.

Offer sheets have the potential to become very expensive very quickly, and to land one of the available impact players, teams would have to part with at least one unprotected first-round pick. The player receiving the offer sheet would also have to sign the potential contract, never a certain endeavor.

There are players potentially available on the trade market like Rasmus Andersson, Marco Rossi, and Jason Robertson, but Verbeek has yet to acquire an NHL talent in or approaching their primes who would fit the core of the team when they’re competitive in his three-plus years as the GM of the Ducks.

To this point in the offseason, it’s questionable if the Ducks roster is better than the one that ended the 2024-25 season. If it is, the improvement is marginal and unlikely to add the necessary 15 points in the standings to make the playoffs in 2025-26.

The Ducks currently have a projected $28.99 million in cap space and the potential remains for further moves to be made, but history hasn’t hinted that Verbeek has the capability to thoroughly assess the markets and pull the trigger on a move that can elevate the roster enough to achieve the stated mandate of playing hockey past mid-April.

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Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Toronto Maple Leafs fans breathed a sigh of relief when Anthony Stolarz unexpectedly took the ice as Joseph Woll’s backup goaltender in their Game 7 defeat against the Florida Panthers in May, especially as the goaltender later confirmed he was fully cleared from the concussion he sustained from an incident with Panthers forward Sam Bennett in Game 1 of their second-round series. A further positive sign was seeing the goaltender take the ice in full gear with his off-season goaltending coach George Bosak, a moment shared on the coach’s Instagram account on Friday.

Stolarz has been working with Bosak for a number of years when heading home for the off-season and has credited the coach for getting the most out of the goaltender in recent years. “Over the years, he has worked with me to sharpen my fundamentals and help me grow my game,” Stolarz said as a testimonial on the goalie coach’s website.

Stolarz signed with the Maple Leafs as a free agent last summer to a two-year deal worth $5 million. It’s safe to say he has provided excellent return on investment thus far. The goaltender played in a career-high 34 games where he posted a 21-8-3 record with a .926 save percentage in his first season with Toronto.

There was talk of him getting consideration for the Vezina with the numbers he was putting up until the discovery of a small foreign body in his knee forced the goaltender to miss approximately seven weeks.

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Stolarz and Woll are expected to share the net next season, but beyond that, it’ll be interesting to see what the Leafs do. Stolarz is eligible to sign a contract extension although it doesn’t appear as though there is anything imminent on that front. From a numbers standpoint, Stolarz could see a big raise; however, his injury history and a lack of a consistent starter's workload may be a stumbling block in figuring out a term that is fair.

Where Was The Concussion Spotter For Maple Leafs Goaltender Anthony Stolarz Injury In Game 1?A collision between Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett and Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz in Game 1 of their second-round playoff clash left Stolarz visibly dazed and slow to get up.

Stolarz’s absence in the playoffs was particularly evident to the Leafs. Although Woll performed well in goal, Stolarz’s puck-moving ability was missed by Toronto’s skaters, and Florida successfully capitalized on that by rimming pucks in Toronto’s zone with high velocity beginning with the latter stages of Game 2 and beyond.

(Photo Credit instagram.com/@coach_bosak)

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