from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Sometimes you need a different voice, a different style. Cassidy had gone stale in Boston and is now showing his stuff in Vegas. DeBoer was pushed out in Vegas and Dallas is playing like a contender in the West.

There’s little doubt owners will watch this trend to see how it plays out over an entire season. Nine teams begin this season with new coaches — 10 if you count Martin St. Louis in Montreal. Thus far, the biggest surprises in the NHL — Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Vegas, Dallas — all of them with new bench bosses.

- When the Maple Leafs fired Mike Babcock in November of 2019, they did so for a laundry list of reasons. Their record was only 9-10-4. They had relinquished more goals against than they had scored. Their play was sloppy and listless. Their effort level was well below expectations. The players and the coach had clearly lost each other. Now here we are, coming up to November of 2022, and the Leafs have lost to three of the NHL’s worst teams in their first eight games. No one other than Ilya Samsonov is playing beyond expectations. It makes you wonder, with more pressure from within than there has been in the past, with ownership more involved, whether the Leafs are heading to a similar place with Sheldon Keefe. And if they are, who does that say more about: The coach, general manager Kyle Dubas, or the players he and others have assembled?

- Just read John Shannon’s book, Evolve or Die. Highly recommend this for anyone who is passionate about hockey on television in Canada. The stories of Bobby Hull and Mike Palmateer, which make you laugh out loud, are among the best in the book.

- The top 10 scorers in the NHL as of Saturday: Three Russians, three Canadians, one Czech, one Swede, one German, one Norwegian. Not sure that’s ever happened before.

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