from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

Nazem Kadri is a nasty piece of work and Auston Matthews has all the personality of a boiled turnip — but Mitch Marner is a treat to watch and the Leafs have as much young talent as any team in the game. And if they’re able to pull off the upset against a pretty good Washington team, I’ll have to admit Mike Babcock is not what I’ve always thought him to be: one of the most over-rated coaches in the game.

So why would a Maple Leafs win in this series sicken much of this country and why would a series win against the Canadiens or a Stanley Cup for Toronto be so mortifying?

Let’s go back to Game 2 of the Habs-Rangers series. With the Canadiens trailing 3-2 at the break after the second period, the broadcast cut to the crew based in (where else) Toronto — and Nick Kypreos went into an astonishing rant attacking Montreal’s Alexander Radulov for taking a penalty and (allegedly) not showing up for the series.

Kypreos went so far as to claim Radulov was jeopardizing his chances for a long-term contract by playing the way he was and by taking stupid penalties. Now this is what you get when you ask a Leafs cheerleader to “analyze” a Canadiens game. Kypreos was clearly biased and completely wrong: Radulov’s long-term deal is already a certainty (if the Canadiens don’t sign him, someone else will) and in any case, the charismatic Russian would finish the night with three points and score the winning goal in overtime.

There’s the rub: the 24/7, 365-day-a-year Toronto media obsession with the Maple Leafs at the expense of the six other Canadian teams and the inherent bias in virtually all the broadcasts, whether we’re talking about programs like Hockey Central, in-game commentary or studio analysis.

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