James Mirtle

Toronto

Senior Managing Editor and Columnist, NHL at The Athletic

Senior Writer @TheAthletic @TheAthleticNHL • Podcasting w/ @LeafReport & @JDBunkis • Kamloopsian - go @blazerhockey 🇨🇦

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Articles

Why, more than ever, any NHL team can win the Stanley Cup

5 days ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

The NHL's great flattening has been happening for a while, but it was especially evident in free agency last summer. Of the top 40 UFAs who changed teams, the vast majority were from teams that had made the playoffs that year. And nearly 60 percent of them ultimately signed with teams lower in the standings, with the Seattle Kraken, Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators snapping up a lot of the overpriced talent.
Welcome to Red Light, our new hockey newsletter!

6 days ago | nytimes.com | Sean McIndoe |James Mirtle

| This is the first edition of Red Light newsletter 🏒 The Athletic's hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox. We are your hockey hosts, Sean McIndoe and James Mirtle, and this is our letter 'o news. Let's go:It's Playoff Time 🔥Who has the best chance to win the Cup? 🤔 OK, maybe a bit heavy on the emojis so far, but hey, we're pumped to be here.
Why the Maple Leafs will be forced to play with only 5 defencemen this weekend

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Jonas Siegel |James Mirtle

The Maple Leafs will play with only five defencemen when they host the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. An injury to Oliver Ekman-Larsson, on top of a lingering injury to Jake McCabe and a salary-cap crunch, means the Leafs have no choice but to play a defenceman short for one game against a divisional rival.
How do you fix an NHL arena where the fans don't cheer? 'Play in the sandbox'

1 week ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

It was a small moment in the Toronto Maple Leafs season, a late-January footnote that most of the NHL hardly noticed. But when the team captain remarked how he was disappointed in the home crowd for showing so little enthusiasm for an early-game fight, it set off plenty of commentary in the center of the hockey universe about the Leafs fan base. Or, to be more specific, the lack of one in the seats.
Where does Alex Ovechkin rank among NHL GOATs after claiming all-time goals record?

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

There are lots of hard-to-unpack things that go along with Alex Ovechkin setting the NHL's all-time goals record. It's a ridiculous number of goals - 895 - and it feels highly likely he'll be able to push well past 900 next season, perhaps as far as another 50 beyond Wayne Gretzky's iconic 26-year-old mark. Ovechkin has mused in the past about retiring after 2025-26, at age 40, so maybe it stops there, around 940 or so? What's remarkable to contemplate is how much higher it could have been.
The 8 NHL teams with the best case to make an offer sheet this offseason

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

There's an interesting debate in the NHL right now over whether this will be the "summer of offer sheets" or not. Certainly the fact that the St. Louis Blues pulled off the double sheet last year with Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway helps improve the odds, especially given how they've contributed to the Blues' midseason resurgence this year.
Maple Leafs clinch postseason berth for NHL-leading ninth consecutive season

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

The Toronto Maple Leafs are headed back to the playoffs. With a 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night, the Leafs clinched a ninth consecutive trip to the postseason. Toronto entered the game only needing a single point to clinch. The Leafs now have 96 points with seven games remaining in their season, and the teams currently on the edge of the Eastern Conference playoff picture - including the Montreal Canadiens with 79 points - can no longer catch them in the standings.
How do the Maple Leafs measure up to recent NHL Stanley Cup winners?

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

By James MirtleFollow James on Twitter James Mirtle is a senior writer covering the NHL for The Athletic. James joined The Athletic as the inaugural editor in Canada in 2016 and served as senior managing editor of The Athletic NHL for four years. Previously, he spent 12 years as a sportswriter with The Globe and Mail. A native of Kamloops, B.C., he appears regularly on Sportsnet 590 The Fan and other radio stations across Canada. @mirtle
Inside the unlikeliest start in hockey history

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | James Mirtle

Three years ago, Brandon Halverson had all but given up on his hockey dream. He was delivering UberEats and groceries and working on a farm. He sold his truck. He borrowed money from his parents. Whatever it took to scrape out enough money for rent. Two weeks ago, he stepped into the net with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the first time as an NHL starter - nearly 11 years after being drafted as a highly touted prospect, and more than seven years after his only other appearance in the league.
If Mitch Marner leaves the Maple Leafs in free agency, what is Plan B?

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Jonas Siegel |James Mirtle

One of the big questions in the aftermath of the Mitch Marner trade deadline kerfuffle had to do with contract negotiations. We learned it wasn't Marner waiting on the Toronto Maple Leafs to get a deal done. It was the Maple Leafs waiting on Marner. The question is why? Why are the Leafs so determined to extend Marner before they even see how he and the team perform in the postseason? The answer might be simple: They've looked into the future and didn't like what they saw without one of their stars.