The relationship between sports and cinema is one of the most fun lenses to examine pop culture and Max Domi is getting in on the fun after finalizing a four-year contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Domi invoked Martin Scorsese’s 2013 masterpiece, The Wolf of Wall Street, to tell Leafs Nation that he’s not f—ing leaving!
Leafs Nation… I have a PSA. ✍️ pic.twitter.com/3puE5Jo5mW
— Max Domi (@maxdomi) June 30, 2024
It’s a natural extension for a player who was born into Maple Leafs royalty and clearly loved playing in Toronto. Domi fired up the fans prior to the playoffs with an Instagram hype reel, displaying The Passion.
After a slow start to the season, Domi morphed into one of the NHL’s premier playmakers and excelled on the wing alongside Auston Matthews, finishing the regular season with nine goals and 47 points in 80 games. Domi finished tied for 7th in primary assists at 5-on-5 and his lateral playmaking ability outweighed his defensive shortcomings as the season waged onward. Toronto controlled 50 percent of the expected goals when Domi was on the ice at 5-on-5 but he sported a plus-16 goal differential.
He was forced into operating as the team’s No. 1 centre when Matthews was ruled out of Game 5 and 6 with an undisclosed illness and excelled, although Toronto reverted to an atypically conservative game plan when No. 34 was out. Domi’s positional flexibility is an asset, even though it’s clear that he’s much better suited on the left wing.
Domi is one of several Toronto-born Maple Leafs and he excelled in the Greater Toronto Hockey League, first with the Toronto Marlboros and later with the Don Mills Flyers, before graduating to the OHL. Throughout his career, Domi has gone through several stops but his childhood home is now a permanent landing spot and he’ll be in his mid-3os when the extension ends.
Welcome back, Max Domi! It was hard to entertain the idea that you were leaving the Maple Leafs in the first place.
