"When you don’t have first-rounders, you have to find your talent elsewhere. Even though the Toronto Maple Leafs already have some of the most exciting youngsters in the NHL on their squad, the pipeline of the future must always be fed and recently, the organization made a spate of free-agent signings from the college and junior ranks. One of the more intriguing names is Bobby McMann, the erstwhile captain of NCAA Colgate and the Raiders’ leading scorer the past three seasons. McMann had previously attended a couple rookie camps with the Nashville Predators and had multiple offers from other NHL teams this spring for an AHL deal, but Toronto (specifically, the Marlies) won out for his services.
“It’s such a great hockey market and I wanted to go somewhere that fit my game,” McMann said. “They really liked my game and the speed I can bring; they want to play up the ice with a lot of speed and they thought I would fit well there.”
McMann popped onto my radar last summer when I dropped in on Joe Quinn’s Power Edge Pro camp in Toronto. McMann has been in the PEP system for the past six years and came to the Toronto week on recommendation from one of Quinn’s instructors out in Wainwright, Alberta, where McMann hails from.
“He was super-impressive,” Quinn said. “He’s got the whole package, lots of skill. He fit right in with our top players, like Jack Hughes and Connor McDavid.”
Other PEP participants include Quinn Hughes and Dylan Larkin, so you know the competition level is elite. For McMann, the experience was illuminating.
“That was really cool,” he said. “I had a couple camps in Toronto with the NHL guys and another one in Kelowna. You get to see the elite level they play at, how quickly they make decisions, how skilled they are with the puck. More than anything, how intense they are in their practises and in wanting to get better. That drives me to elevate my game, work hard and hopefully be at that level pretty soon.”
Before Colgate, he had played in the Alberta Jr. A League with the Bonnyville Pontiacs, where he was named AJHL player of the year in 2015-16. That’s when a bunch of NCAA teams came calling, but McMann stuck to his previous commitment to the Raiders.
“They were one of the first to reach out and similar to Toronto, they liked my game,” he said. “More than anything, they were going to give me a great opportunity there. I really liked the coaching staff and I got a chance to get a great education, too. It was the whole package.”
Playing for a low-scoring Colgate program, McMann didn’t put up gaudy numbers in college, but playing that hard ECAC schedule did force him to adapt his game.
“It was definitely tough to generate offense,” he said. “It taught me where you need to be at specific times and how to get to the front of the net, because that’s where goals are scored. It’s an older league, so it’s harder to play in and I hope that translates to the pros for me.”
During his four-year tenure with the Raiders, McMann got a chance to put some more detail into his game, as well.
“I would say decision-making was the biggest change,” he said. “The difference between junior and college is so many guys are strong and you have to pick your spots. If you think you’ll skate through everybody – that’s never gonna happen.”
There are always reasons why some players get drafted into the NHL and others find their way later on. McMann clearly honed his game at Colgate and with his speed and skill, it’s obvious why Toronto wanted to bring him into the fold.
“Sometimes players fly under the radar,” Quinn said. “Maybe a bit of a late-bloomer, but he got lots of development over the years. Sometimes all the elements come together and he has been maturing as a player. When you reduce his space, he’s got that extra gear down low where he can make quick decisions, he can react, he can move pucks to space and he’s got a quick release. He’s a real find.”
This year’s edition of the AHL Marlies was rather depleted of high-end skill, simply because a lot of the top guys had graduated to the Maple Leafs, or were called up due to injury for stretches.
McMann may not have been a known name to the average hockey fan, but Quinn has seen him go shot-for-shot with Connor McDavid in PEP drills – so there’s definitely something there to be intrigued by – and the Marlies hope to reap the benefits next year."
"U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with commissioners and presidents from 13 major pro sports on a Saturday call, which addressed the future outlook of resuming play in the various leagues once the COVID-19 pandemic is contained. Among the league bosses present on the call was NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
Trump’s outlook was optimistic. He expressed that he believes the NFL season will still start on time in September, and the stance applied to other sports, too. As reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, “Donald Trump also told commissioners that he hopes to have fans back in stadiums and arenas by August and September.”
That sounds exciting, but what matters more is the second half of that Schefter tweet: “though it is currently unclear if medical experts find that to be a realistic timeline amid the current coronavirus pandemic.”
It’s understandable if the fan bases across the various major sports, from Major League Baseball to the NBA, start dreaming of seeing their favorite athletes compete again, and there’s a case to be made that at least a little bit of hope must be sprinkled into our brains during these terrifying times to keep the despair at bay. But once we’re done dreaming briefly, we have to return to reality, and nothing Trump expressed on Saturday’s call moves the needle at this time. This is the same world leader who predicted the virus was “going to disappear” a few weeks earlier.
The truth is the outlooks for every sport will not change until the qualified medical experts make their rulings on when it will be safe to resume play. NBA commissioner Adam Silver reportedly had the right idea by indicating his league would “would love to lead the way in starting the economy once there was an ‘all clear’ from world health officials,” as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Forget fans back in stadiums: the return to sports will follow the COVID-19 societal shutdown in reverse order. Large group gatherings were the first things ruled out, as they were the most obviously unsafe, and they’ll therefore be the last to return. What we’ll see first is what had been cooked up as the last-gasp idea before the major sports leagues shut down: telecasts from empty venues. And even those appear to be months away. In North America, most experts are indicating that April will be the peak month for COVID-19 cases. Sports will thus remain on the back-back-back burner.
Whenever sports resume, the NHL has maintained the position it wants to finish the 2019-20 season. Recently tabled scenarios even indicate the NHL will consider neutral-site playoff series, played in North Dakota or New Hampshire, with no fans and designed purely for television broadcasts. The games could be staggered the same way they have been at international tournaments like the Olympics. As far-fetched as these resolutions sound, they remain much more realistic than seeing 20,000 fans watching playoff games in their home cities by August.
Sooner or later, however, the league will have to decide if delaying the end of the 2019-20 season to squeeze in the playoffs and award the Stanley Cup does too much damage to the 2020-21 season – not just the start of it, but the off-season preceding it, including the draft and free agency. Theoretically, one would have to think the league will set a deadline for a decision on cancelling the season. But, as NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Hockey News via email Monday, the league isn’t there yet. “It depends on how the situation continues to unfold,” Daly said.
And we can assume “situation” in this case does not refer to Trump’s proclamations. The situation will be dictated by the pandemic and what health professionals deem safe behavior. It’s fine to feel hopeful about the return of sports, but we have to walk the line between fantasy and reality. The CDC’s recommendation of not holding any events of more than 50 people for at least eight weeks made late May to early June the best-case scenario for sporting events to resume, and that recommendation was three weeks ago, which may as well be an eternity. We’re looking at July or August now – if you’re an extreme optimist."