2 Teams Battle It Out For Title of 'Most Toxic' Environment in NHL

There are a number of teams around the NHL these days that find themselves embroiled in chaos and controversy. There's the Edmonton Oilers, and their latest goaltending debacle; the Vancouver Canucks, who have sent out a memo that they're ready to make trades; the St. Louis Blues, another team ready to hit the trade market.

But according to rants this week by insiders around the league, there seem to be two teams that are battling it out for the title of 'Most Toxic' environment in the league.

We'll start with Frank Seravalli, who said on his latest Bleacher Report Insider Notebook that he thinks the Nashville Predators definitely should hold that title:

Where do the Preds go from here? How do they fix this? What do they do?... They finished in 28th place last season, and now what?... A lot of (their star players, like Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault) have no-trade and no-move clauses, and they're going to control their destination on how this process works and what happens next. So, the Preds are stuck. We don't need any more games to see who the Nashville Predators are!...
I've talked for weeks repeatedly about how the environment around the Nashville Predators is the most toxic in the NHL. From top to bottom... It's a brutal situation and I don't know where they go from here.

The insider also pointed out how GM Barry Trotz's calling the players out in the media earlier this week ("I need f-----g more from them") didn't work and was followed immediately by an 8-3 loss. He feels that the GM is as much to blame for this mess as any of the players.

Pretty convincing arguments. Though perhaps Seravalli's rant inspired Nashville to a surprising 6-3 win over the Red Wings in Detroit Wednesday night.

Maple Leafs season has been 'a complete disaster': The Athletic

But now let's go to James Mirtle. On The Athletic's The Leaf Report podcast this week, he made the case for the Toronto Maple Leafs being the biggest hot mess in the NHL. An exciting finish to their 2-1 OT victory over the Blue Jackets in Columbus Wednesday night, notwithstanding.

The feeling of disaster in Toronto is mostly because, unlike the Predators, nobody saw this coming. The Leafs took the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers to Game 7 in the second round of the playoffs last spring. Even with the loss of Mitch Marner, everyone still thought they'd be a playoff team this year. But going into Wednesday night's play, they found themselves in dead last in the Eastern Conference. Mirtle expands on that:

This season is turning into a complete disaster. Basically almost every single thing that could go wrong is going wrong. The roster construction is brutal. The coaches don't know what to do. They are having a whole bunch of injuries. Almost no one is having a good season other than John Tavares. This season just feels like the perfect storm of 'suck', for lack of a better term.
This just feels like a toxic stew that they've created. They have no chance of contending this year... If you muddle along with this dysfunctional, broken organization... you're accomplishing nothing... Maybe the smartest thing to do is reset the organization.

But how does Mirlte really feel about the Leafs this season?

In all seriousness, both arguments are very convincing, but both teams responded Wednesday night, so maybe we'll just call this a tie for now.