Ex-Leaf spotted skating in full Leafs gear this week
Former NHLer Joffrey Lupul had tumultuous end to his NHL career while with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Coming off a career season in 2011-12 where Lupul scored 25 goals and 67 points in 66 games, Toronto rewarded him with the richest contract of his career, a five-year $26.25M deal.
Unfortunately for Lupul and the Leafs, the injuries began to pile up leading to Lupul only playing about half of his contract. Lupul's final NHL game was on Feb. 6, 2016. The Alberta native would spend the next two and half seasons on LITR, collecting his full pay while Toronto tanked leading to the eventual drafting of future first overall pick Auston Matthews in the summer of 2016.
There was only one outburst on social media from Lupul in the form of a quickly deleted Instragram post taking a dig at Toronto in September 2017 � "Haha failed physical? They cheat, everyone lets them." Lupul later apologized for the post, admitting that there was no truth it.
These days, Lupul is living a pretty great life. He's an investor in a bar in New York called Due West and he travels the globe with no real financial restrictions. Lupul is known to be great friends with Missin Curfew co-hosts Shane O'Brien and Scottie Upshall. They were recently skating in charity pick up game.
Lupul chose to don the blue and white Maple Leafs gear from his time with the team. It was a surprising choice of attire for some, but Lupul likely did it to show there's no hard feelings on his end of towards the franchise.
The former 7th overall pick in 2002 was a very solid player when healthy, scoring at more than a half-a-point per game pace. In 701 games, Lupul scored 205 goals and 420 points.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 23 | 1158 ANSWERS Ex-Leaf spotted skating in full Leafs gear this week Who had the best career out of these 2002 NHL draft picks? | ||
| Joffrey Lupul | 520 | 44.9 % |
| Scottie Upshall | 207 | 17.9 % |
| Paul Bissonnette | 100 | 8.6 % |
| Ryan Whitney | 331 | 28.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
