TORONTO

A close hockey friend has described Dave Nonis as a “dead man walking” and has urged the Maple Leafs general manager to go down swinging if he’s going to be fired in Toronto.

The associates of Nonis — and there are many in the hockey world who trust him and believe in him — are pushing him to be active, forceful and aggressive in what could be his final days as Leafs GM.

While no one from the Leafs, not CEO Tim Leiweke or president Brendan Shanahan, has given any indication that Nonis will be let go with three years remaining on his contract, there seems to be an assumption amongst NHL executives that his days are in fact numbered.

For the record, Shanahan has never said anything but positive things about Nonis and his relationship with him. But in an interview with Leiweke about the Leafs’ future earlier this week, he referenced Shanahan often and never mentioned Nonis’ name once.

The Leafs are expected to make at least five deals by the March 2 deadline and none of those are likely to include Phil Kessel or captain Dion Phaneuf, who will be marketed more forcefully once the season ends. Injuries to Joffrey Lupul and Cody Franson have complicated trading matters for Nonis, whose history is mostly conservative at deadline time.

But his friends are urging him to get rid of his patient ways and go out in a blaze of trading glory, if that is at all possible.

THIS AND THAT

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I don’t think the Winnipeg Jets won the Evander Kane trade handily. I break it down this way: Tyler Myers for Zack Bogosian is one developing defenceman for another. Slight edge to Winnipeg. Now Buffalo gets Kane, a proven commodity with mounds of baggage in exchange for a late first-round pick, Claude Lemieux’s son and a minor leaguer. They may get something for Kane or they may end up with nothing. Late first-round picks are no sure thing. Buffalo gets a sure-thing NHL player in Kane to play alongside whichever centre they draft first in June ... The difficulty in trading Kessel is as multi-layered: 1) there are only eight teams they can deal him to, as based on his contract; 2) Quite likely, the teams that want him at all may not be on his list; 3) The clubs with interest must have salary cap room and a willingness to spend, otherwise it doesn’t work; 4) The history of trading this quality of player works against the Leafs. They need to find a deal like Philadelphia found in moving Jeff Carter for essentially Jakub Vorachek ... Jonathan Bernier wants a long-term contract from the Leafs. The Leafs would like to go short-term, like one year. And the surprise, suddenly, is it has become apparent there’s a divide between the Leafs and their goalie, Bernier has become an object of trade interest from teams calling Toronto.

HEAR AND THERE

Before he had the ubiquitous Kane, Paul Maurice was no stranger to odd behavior among his players. Maurice was coach of the Leafs when I privately brought to his attention: “Do you know about Jiri Tlusty?” He paused: “Oh god, I know,” he looked at me and slightly shook his head. “Kids.” ... I’d love to complain about the Argos dreadful schedule to the CFL commissioner if there was in fact a CFL commissioner ... Andrew Ference deserves some kind of an award for everything he has done to try and bring leadership and responsibility to the Edmonton Oilers. And still, there is disaster all around him ... In baseball, tenure trumps talent, which is why Colby Rasmus is making $8 million to play for the Houston Astros and the impressive Josh Donaldson just lost his arbitration to find up just over $4 milllion with the Blue Jays ... If you walk fast, you can get from Milos Raonic’s parents home in Thornhill to the home of Andrew Wiggins’ parents’ house in about 20 minutes. Amazing, two world-class athletes growing up about two Pizza Pizzas apart ... If the Leafs play this losing thing right, they’ll have an 11.5% shot at first pick in the NHL draft. Had they done this a year ago, it wouldn’t have been that much different: 14.2% ... One of these years the Raptors have to ask themselves this: Is Terrence Ross a developing basketball player or is he just an athlete without real basketball instincts? Is he the Raptors version of Jake Gardiner?

SCENE AND HEARD

Did you see the excited mob at the airport for the landing of new Toronto FC hope Sebastian Giovinco? Did you know that most of the cheering crowd were MLSE employees bussed to the airport to make a scene at Giovinco’s arrival ... I tried the online NHL draft lottery 10 times yesterday and Edmonton won’t like this: The Oilers didn’t get Connor McDavid once. The results: Carolina 4, Toronto 2, and New Jersey, Florida, Buffalo and Arizona once. Interesting though: In 10 tries, the worst two teams in the NHL only got first pick once ... Jim Harbaugh, who makes gazillions to coach University of Michigan, says his favourite place to eat is Cracker Barrel. It’s time to have a talk with Harbaugh about his culinary choices ... Billy Casper. Jerry Tarkanian. Dean Smith. It seems every day we’re losing another legend ... I’m hoping Mark Arcobello gets moved at the trade deadline. That would mean five teams in one season ... This much we’ve known for a very long time: Alex Rodriguez is, in fact, sorry.

AND ANOTHER THING

So Charles Barkley doesn’t think much of Daryl Morey, the statistically based general manager of the Houston Rockets. He may be right. It was Morey, after all, who traded Kyle Lowry to the Raptors and banked on Jeremy Lin being the point guard in Houston. Imagine where the Raptors are today without Lowry? ... When Cliff Fletcher was general manager of the Leafs, he had Pat Burns coaching the club and Marc Crawford coaching his AHL farm team, assisted by Joel Quenneville. It’s called being ready ...I don’t know why, but the notion that soon-to-be 38-year-old Floyd Mayweather may eventually fight soon-to-be 37-year-old Manny Pacquiao reminds me of line from Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Said Oscar Madison, the sloppy sports writer: “I’ve got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches.” Asked his friend: “What’s the green?” Madison: It’s either very new cheese or very old meat.” ... Happy anniversary to me. Twenty-eight years ago this date, I began work at the Toronto Sun. For those counting, this is Year 26 for the Sunday notes ... Happy birthday to Russell Martin (32), Jaromir Jagr (43), Craig Simpson (48), Brian Propp (56), I.M. Hipp (59) if you remember him and John Hadl (75) ... And hey, whatever became of Sandy McCarthy?

ATTENTION ON KESSEL ONLY HURTING HIM

Randy Carlyle came to understand the remarkable but flawed oddity that is Phil Kessel. He didn’t coach him much. He didn’t speak to him all that often. Mostly, realizing what he was up against, having a petulant child as his most talented and most protected player, he left him alone.

Since the firing, the more attention that has been put on Kessel, by Brendan Shanahan, by Peter Horachek, by Steve Spott, by the media, the more he has retreated, the less he has produced. Kessel’s collapse in the final 22 games post-Olympics a year ago was supposed to be monumental. The Leafs won just six games. Kessel managed just six goals in that time.

But heading into Montreal on Saturday night, Kessel’s retreat has been unlike any other before it. The Leafs have won just two games for Horachek. Kessel has only six points, three of them goals, in the 16 past games. The collapse a year ago he scored at .68 per game. The collapse now: .38 per game — a 31-point pace.

By salary cap numbers, Kessel is the eighth-highest paid forward in the NHL and next season he will rank 10th. For a scorer who is usually in the top 10, that is paying market value for Kessel. And by my count, he would be the top offensive player on 21-of-30 NHL teams. That won’t necessarily make him easy to trade if the Leafs go that route. But one thing seems clear: The way to get the most out of Kessel is to put the least amount of pressure on him. He reacts like a spoiled kid when prodded, hanging on the periphery, rarely pushing his way through.

GORODN AN INSPIRING WRITER

In the worst of Blue Jays seasons, before all the games were televised, before there was sports TV and sports radio, before there was an Internet or social media, the words of Alison Gordon stayed with me as someone young and aspiring to journalism.

Stayed with me all these years later.

When I heard that Gordon had passed away at the age of 72, the first woman to cover the baseball beat full-time, I looked at my bookshelf and pulled out Foul Balls, her book on her time covering the Jays for the Toronto Star. I thumbed through the pages and came across this:

“The day that (Rico) Carty was released in March 1980 was stormy. Rain sluiced down the window of his hotel room and a palm tree whipped against it in the wind, punctuating his lament. He sat in an armchair too small for his body, gripping the arms with hands on which rings spelled out his name in diamonds. Gold chains and medallions glittered at his neck but he looked battered and confused, like a boxer who had defended his title one too many fights.”

Gordon brought you to the ballpark, introduced you to the players, somehow made you understand they were athletes yet they were just people, flawed, different, human. She is best known as a pioneer, as the first female beat writer in the game. But she should also being remembered for the quality of her work.

Today, there are 41 women covering baseball full-time, 10 of them are Hall of Fame voters. There are 22 women covering the NHL in 30 cities. There are still challenges for women in sports media. Alison Gordon made it just a little easier for all of them.

IT’S THE RAPTORS AGAINST AMERICA

This is a far too typical and historical American attitude towards the Raptors, who find themselves in the lofty position of second in the Eastern Confererence, seven wins better than they’ve ever been at an NBA all-star break.

This comes from the excellent website grantland.com and their fine basketball writer, Andrew Sharp, in his halfway assessment of the season:

“The Raptors. Full disclosure: We all have finite time on this planet. Life is a series of choices. Where do you spend your energy? Who gets your attention? You can’t do everything. So who do you love, and who do you ignore? Watching the NBA is like that. I know they’ve been good, I know Kyle Lowry is great, but for the life of me, I can’t bring myself to care about the Toronto Raptors.”

In the same article, Lowry is listed as the 10th best point guard in the NBA, behind many he has outplayed head-to-head this season.

This is what the Raptors fight against and face regularly and why Masai Ujiri once used an expletive to begin a playoff series. They fight against it in the U.S. and across a lot of this country. They have never been better or more interesting or more talented. And really, we need to embrace that.

In a market where sports complaining is a lot like breathing — we do it naturally without knowing we’re even doing it — the Raptors remain an anomaly. Our anomaly.