You might argue that the best player, other than Kopitar, in the league, is Crosby.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Riddick Bowe isn’t happy with the Toronto Maple Leafs and their recent struggles. Yes, you heard that correctly.

Bowe is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., but has been a diehard Leafs fan for decades and on Thursday he called out Leafs coach Randy Carlyle on Twitter.

If you visit Bowe’s Twitter page, which features a Maple Leafs logo in the background, you’ll soon come to realize the passionate pugilist, who owns a home in Toronto, spends much of his tweeting about the team. He even frequently uses the hashtag #BoweLeafsBowe.

Like most Leafs fans, Bowe isn’t afraid to share his opinions about the team. According to his timeline, he is a big fan of Phil Kessel and says the team needs to cut captain Dion Phaneuf.

The Leafs are in a tight battle for the final two playoff spots in the East and must go on a hot streak in their remaining eight games if they wish to qualify for the post-season for a second straight year. A loss to the St. Louis Blues earlier this week didn’t help the Leafs’ cause… and it really upset Bowe.

The 46-year-old retired from pro boxing in 2008 with a record of 43-1, 1 NC. Bowe held the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles during his career and had two wins over Evander Holyfield.

The Leafs will look to avoid a seventh consecutive loss as they visit the Philadelphia Flyers Friday on Sportsnet Ontario with coverage starting at 7 p.m.

PENGUINS FADING

Lest we pretend that the Maple Leafs are the only team having trouble when it comes to advanced metrics, let's look higher up the standings at a Pittsburgh Penguins team that has been on a gradual, but steady, decline since Christmas. While Pittsburgh's record is 19-10-4 in that span, their Fenwick Close has declined from 54% to 50.2%, the kind of dip that reveals cracks beneath the surface of that 19-10-4 record.

It's not as though this is wholly mysterious. The Penguins have endured significant injuries, losing players like James Neal, Pascal Dupuis, Kris Letang and Paul Martin for more than 20 games apiece. It's understandable to have performance fall off for a team missing quality players for large chunks of the season, but there are other issues at play too.

The Penguins' bottom six forwards have been getting destroyed in terms of puck possession and while some of that is a matter of how teams deploy their talent (starting more shifts in the defensive zone makes it harder to generate positive possession stats), the Penguins' player usage chart also shows that their defence is in trouble without Martin and Letang to aid in the puck-moving effort.

Matt Niskanen and rookie Olli Maatta are above break-even and Simon Despres has relatively strong possession stats in the 17 games that he has played this season, but Robert Bortuzzo, Brooks Orpik, Deryk Engelland and Rob Scuderi are all under 47% Corsi and that's a hard way for a team to remain near the top of the standings.

In the Penguins' case, they can out-perform possession numbers, to some degree, because they have rare elite forward talent in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, driving the offence. With Malkin out, perhaps for the rest of the regular season, that's putting a heavy load on Crosby's shoulders.

That means the likes of Brandon Sutter, Marcel Goc and perhaps a soon-returning Beau Bennett have to take responsibility for improving the play of Pittsburgh's bottom six forwards.

For much of the season, it appeared to be a two-team race in the Eastern Conference, but it's pretty clear now that the Boston Bruins are ahead of the fading Penguins and now Pittsburgh needs to get healthy and playing better in a hurry if they're not going to be a vulnerable favourite in round one of the playoffs.

According to The Detroit News’ Mike Martindale, Tatar, who is subletting Darren Helm’s Detroit apartment, is facing eviction from his condominium complex due to noise complaints. Martindale reports the Main Street Lofts Condominium Association ”has received numerous complaints from neighbors that since late October 2013, excessive noise has been heard from the players’ condominium ‘up to four nights a week’ between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. including ‘loud music, yelling and banging on the floors and walls.'

According to the lawsuit, Tatar and Helm will need to provide reasons as to why they should not be evicted. Surely, if they can squeak into the playoffs for the 23rd year in a row Motor City will forgive the winger for some hardcore late-night jam sessions.

Detroit Red Wings Playoff Chances
Lost to Montreal 4-5, playoff odds down 13.7 to 46.4%

Toronto Maple Leafs Playoff Chances
Did not play, playoff odds up 4.2 to 29.2%