Don Cherry calls out the Leafs for making a “big mistake.”

The Toronto Maple Leafs have only played 2 games thus far in the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season but already the decisions made by general manager Kyle Dubas and head coach Mike Babcock are being questioned by some of the biggest names in the sport. 

On Saturday night during the most recent segment of Coach's Corner veteran NHL analysts Don Cherry and Ron MacLean touched on a recent move from the Maple Leafs that was the subject of some controversy. The move in question was the decision to place veteran backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney on waivers earlier this week, a decision that would eventually result in him being claimed by the Carolina Hurricanes organization. Now obviously the Leafs were not happy about losing one of their roster players for nothing at all but Don Cherry was especially disgusted by the decision to waive him in the first place and he didn't pull any punches.

"I have to say something right off the bat, why would they get rid of McElhinney?"

It was one of the opening statements from Cherry on Coach's Corner and it was quite clear that he was fired up about the decision from Leafs' management to go forward with the younger man in Garret Sparks. Clearly Cherry felt that McElhinney would be the better option for the Leafs, and more specifically the better option for number one goaltender Frederik Andersen.

"It's unbelievable to me."

Cherry's criticism seemed to focus in on the fact that not only did he think McElhinney could outperform Sparks, but that Sparks would not be happy merely being a long term backup in the way that McElhinney was. Cherry believes that Sparks will be gunning for the number one spot on the Maple Leafs depth chart and that this could lead to shaken confidence from Andersen should he hit a rough patch at any point during the regular season. Now whether or not you think having some competition between the pipes is a good thing will likely inform how you view this current situation, but Cherry was emphatic about his disdain for the move. He even went so far as to suggest that McElhinney was good enough of a goaltender to usurp Carolina's current number one goalie Scott Darling.

"He will be number one, I guarantee you he will be number one."

Now to be fair to Garret Sparks here it doesn't sound like Cherry is too concerned with how he will perform in net, it's simply that he feels McElhinney was a much better option moving forward for the Maple Leafs. 

"Big mistake getting rid of McElhiney, they are gonna be sorry, not that I have anything against Sparks."

It's an incredibly small sample size thus far but McElhinney hass already been used in a game by the Hurricanes since being acquired on waivers and so far it looks like Cherry may have a point. In his very first night as a Carolina Hurricane McElhinney recorded a 1.00 goals against average while playing a full 60 minutes and finished the game with a .969 save percentage. Now those are extremely solid numbers although admittedly again this is a very small sample size.

"They will rue the day they ever got rid of McElhinney."

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