Old Guys in Blue and White

Good soldier or bad teammate?

2009-11-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

Tonight Vesa Toskala let in three goals in a span of 3:14. Shortly after a shorthanded shot handcuffed him deep in his net to give the Islanders their three goal lead, Toskala went to the trainer's room and did not return.

After the game, it was revealed that Toskala had tweaked his (chronically injured) groin after the second goal. Knowing this sours the outcome of the game a little bit. Toskala was just trying to be a good soldier, battle on through his injuries to give his team a chance to win. However he let in a decisive goal while doing so.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Earlier this season on Oct 12, down 3-2 to the Rangers in the second period, Jason Blake shoved Chris Drury into Toskala, aggravating his groin. After the intermission, Toskala remained in net and surrendered 2 goals in 3:13 to start the period, going on to lose 7-2. Toskala would not play another game until the 31st, 19 days later, even though he played for over 20 minutes after his injury.

Last season at the trade deadline the Leafs revealed that they had picked up Martin Gerber off of waivers and that Toskala would miss the rest of the season for groin surgery. The impetus for the move had been Burke calling Toskala out on his poor play down the stretch, the Leafs of course having a poor record. Toskala became incensed, citing the injury that he had been playing with for some time even though he and the team had been faring poorly with his efforts.

Goaltending is a crucial position in the NHL, a position which has been consistently weak for the post-lockout Leafs. Obviously there is more wrong with the team than just one player between the pipes. Obviously Toskala, in the face of inconsistent back-up performances, has been trying to help the Leafs by staying in while wounded.

So when does being a good soldier turn into being a bad teammate? When does the altruism of playing through adversity for one's team begin to reek of self-importance? Are Leaf fans supposed to sympathize with Toskala for losing games when he's not at his best? Or should they wonder about what might have been if Toskala was up-front about problems that the team could address.

Maybe it's time for Vesa to understand that the team needs him to be honest with his abilities. Maybe it's time for the Leafs to realize that a goalie that can't last 20 games without getting injured probably shouldn't be counted on as an NHL goaltender, and that they might have a player that cares more about ice time than wins.

Is 20 the magic number?

2009-11-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking, late November is around the time of the season that moves involving roster players tend to start. A quarter of the way into the season, GMs can feel like they've seen enough of their club to know what's going right or wrong, while still having enough time to turn things around.

Last year the first major player movement of the season for the Leafs came on November 24th, after their 20th game of the season, when Fletcher traded Steen and Colaiacovo for Lee Stempniak. Struggling to find offense in their first half of October, the Leafs had only 7 wins heading into late November, while the Blues were dealing with injuries to key players and badly needed depth.

(Funnily enough, last year's Blues team is an example for why Leafs fans can still have hope about their season, a team with some emerging youngsters, and one that needed time to gel before tearing up the NHL in the second half en route to a playoff spot.)

Game #20 once again approaches, and the Leafs are about to embark on a stretch of games against teams that they should be able to win against (no offense meant to any team that isn't Ottawa). Whether they know it or not, these next two weeks will likely decide roster spots for our forwards, and like last year both the players and fans may be surprised as to who gets the axe.

Whether it's through trades or waivers, it's obvious that our current roster is suffering from an abundance of contracts. We need the flexibility to make call-ups, if only for the energy that youthful players can bring during their cup of coffee to the show. Like last year, I'd be surprised if any players brought in or up amount to more than depth, but I think player movement is just as important right now.

So who needs to watch out for their jobs? Stajan and Hagman have both found themselves into the doghouse this year, and Exelby and Finger have been unable to cement their roster spot in the eyes of Wilson. Whatever happens, I can't imagine this roster looking the same a month from now.

Memory Lane

2009-10-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

Season getting you down?

This season the Leafs have scored 13 goals in 6 games, without a win.

Last season the Leafs opened the season with 11 goals in 6 games, winning only one game.

Goal scoring wasn't a problem for us last year, even though things have looked rough there's still no evidence to say it will be this year. The season is young, there's lots of adjustments still to be made.

Six games does not make a lottery team.

Positive Thinking

2009-10-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

Now, at the end of last night's game Joe Bowen was saying that you'd really like to point to one positive thing you did after a night like this, but the Leafs couldn't. I disagree. Here's 10 positives that Leafs fans can take out of last night's loss:

1. The Leafs penalty killers went 5 for 6, allowing a 5 on 3 goal. Much better than a .54% kill rate, anyway.

2. The Leafs played about a period and a half that looked really great, except for an insanely soft goal. That's like, almost half a game. If you combined that with the minutes we played well against Pittsburgh and Washington, that's like a win and a third.

3. The Monster's fragile Swedish psyche has yet to be subjected to the worst this team can do in front of him.

4. Because Viktor Stalberg has been out cold these past couple of games we can't call him out for being a bust yet.

5. We've boosted the self-esteem of hockey fans across two nations, and made the fantasy owners of anyone who didn't draft Leafs very happy.

6. Beauchemin and Komisarek have many years ahead to make this up to us.

7. The organization is committed to the proper development of it's youngsters. By the keeping older, higher paid, worse players up on the team while they toil in the AHL.

8. Since neither Orr nor Wallin were signed to score goals, we're 2 for 2 on free agent forwards meeting expectations.

9. The Leafs are getting lots and lots of practice at losing. At least they'll be best in the league at something.

10. The Leafs are saving journalists across Canada from the mental breakdowns that would occur when attempting to write a positive Leafs article.

Don't we all feel better now?

Busy news day

2009-09-25T02:39:00.001-07:00

Never would have thought it still this early into the season (and with the general laziness and apathy that the papers give their sports sections), but there's a lot of food for thought in the papers today:

Gustavsson starts tonight. Apparently for just a period, his time will increase over the next three games. He'll have to face the awesome power of former Leafs Kris Newbury and Brad May though. Hope he's up to the challenge.

Rickard Wallin earned a roster spot already? Funny, I can't remember seeing him play.

Brian Burke broke Steve Moore's neck. Or something.

Some players still have some respect for history and tradition. Nice to see Cujo getting the respect he deserves from a new guy. I like Joey, but I really hope we don't have to rely on him as a starter for any stretch this season.

Kadri's not staying with the club, which is really for the best. Looking forward to next year's camp already.

On that last note, has anybody noticed that Cox has been surprisingly tame of late? I mean, there was only one real shot at Leaf fans in that article. Some of his articles about the Leafs have even been downright... optimistic. Creepy. Maybe that new picture of him looking old has mellowed him out.

Final cuts are coming this weekend, and it's been a great preseason for the club so far. Oct 1st can't come soon enough.

Guess who's got the best NHL10 cover?

2009-09-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

oh yeah.

Funny thing about perceptions

2009-09-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not trying to pick on anybody here. I base a lot of my analysis on the team based on what they've done, that's how I compare guys across our team and I'm wary about predicting too much into the future.

There are some Leafs out there who are, for some reason, maligned. Take the late Anton Stralman, who was lambasted for his play despite being on pace to tie White's points totals, had the second best Corsi rating on the Leafs, and had a better GAON/60 than White, Kaberle, Kubina, Schenn, and Finger. He also had a better Giveaway/Takeaway ratio than most of our top 6, and as an RFA would have likely cost us less than $1M to retain. Still, junk in the eyes of Leaf Nation.

Let's take this MLHS article (which makes an overall good point). Grabovski had "success" with a 48 point season in 78 games, supposedly justifying his raise to almost $3M in salary. Lee Stempniak, however, had an "underwhelming" 44 points in 75 games. That's a 4 point differential, for a guy who's making $400K less than Grabs and is only a year older.

(it should be noted that if you adjust Stempniak's time with the Blues out and work his numbers with the Leafs up to 78 games, he ends up with around 40 points)

The funny thing is, the players are almost identical. They're absurdly close in shots taken, TOI/G, Shifts/G, PPTOI/G. Defensively speaking Stemps has more blocked shots and an absurdly better Giveaway/Takeaway ratio, as well as double the hits.

Stempniak also came on in the latter half of the season, much like Grabs. While not as immediately impressive, he managed 18 points in his last 30 games with the Leafs, better than his first 13 points in the previous 30. After the trade deadline he got even better, with a 4 game point streak in March and 5 points in 5 games to close out April.

The difference? Shooting percentage. Stempniak's 0.086% is half that of Grabs' 0.167%, and it truly makes the difference, as if you adjust each player's totals to the others' Stempniak ends up with 19 goals and Grabs ends up with 14. There's your 4-8 points right there. And it's not as if Stempniak isn't capable of scoring at that pace either, he was shooting at 0.163% in his 27-goal sophomore season.

So why the difference in perception? Is it because Grabs is the flashy player, while Stempniak does more yeoman's work? Is it because one appears to be the hot up and comer, while the other appears to be waning? Is it because Grabs fills our need for a centreman, even though we need RW's just as badly? Are we really dumping on a competent forward over an almost identical one because of 4-5 goals?

There have also been eyebrows raised at Burke naming Matt Stajan a top 6 player alongside Grabovski. But why not? Matt outscored Grabs in the same amount of 5on5 and PP TOI. He can also be counted on for some defensive play, with more PK time, more hits, blocked shots, and a much better (and positive) giveaway/takeaway ratio. I hate to say it, but if we're basing expectations based on last season Stajan deserves the top centre job more than Grabs.

Stajan's also only two months older than Grabovski. Are we hating on Stajan because he's a known quantity to us? Did we actually buy into the hype that the guy was just more trash from the JFJ era despite what was going on in the games in front of us?

Look, I'm not making predictions for next season, nor am I saying that Grabovski isn't a good and exciting hockey player. I just think it's funny how opposing the viewpoints are on three players that are actually very similar in their contributions to the team we had last year.

Ahahahaha-

2009-08-28T03:30:00.000-07:00

-ahahahahahahaaaaa.

Please dear God no.

Once again, with feeling

2009-08-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

As we progress towards the start of the season, and you see more and more articles saying things like this -

"Burke, however, failed to add a top six forward to the mix prompting worries that the Leafs will not be able to score goals this coming season."

- just keep this in mind:

The Leafs placings in league standings among all 30 teams for G/F since the lockout: 10, 11, 8, 9.

The Leafs placings in league standings among all 30 teams for G/A since the lockout: 30, 27, 25, 21.

Every single year scoring (or rather, our ratio of "top six forwards") is brought up as a weakness for the team, every single year those suggestions have been blatantly inaccurate. The fact that the Leafs have tried to cut down on their goals against in lieu of adding scoring is not a negative. It shows our management can actually read, unlike most pundits, and is trying to address the problems that actually plague the team.

We are not the kids we used to be

2009-08-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

(stop wishing for yesterday!)

Alright, so this offseason is winding down with Kaberle's trade window looking to expire once again without movement on our part on Saturday.

I recently read a post about an Edmonton fan wondering how many people actually remained on the team since the lockout. I think the answer came out to 4.

Assuming we don't move Tomas Kaberle, we'll also have 4 Leafs remaining on the team who played at least one game in 2005-2006:

Kaberle
Ponikarovsky
Stajan
White

That's it.

Now, is this unusual for clubs across the NHL? Both Toronto and Edmonton have been on playoff-barren streaks these past few years. So I decided to go check out the other teams in our division (these are players that played games at the NHL level in 05/06):

Montreal - 3:
Markov
Plekanec
A. Kostitsyn

Ottawa - 8:
Alfredsson
Heatley (maybe)
Spezza
Fisher
Neil
Kelly
Volchenkov
Schubert

Boston - 4:
Bergeron
Sturm
Stuart
Alberts (thanks Cornelius)
Thomas

Buffalo - 9:
Connolly
Vanek
Roy
Hecht
Gaustad
Lydman
Paille
Paetsch
Miller

Not even double-digit holdovers on any team in the Northeast. It's pretty obvious that turnover is the norm in the NHL, not the exception, and that it can happen in a surprisingly short amount of time. This is 4 seasons, noting that the 4th has yet to even be played at this point. Kind of reinforces the idea that all these long, cap circumventing contracts are generally a bad idea.

What does this mean to a Leafs fan? For one, think twice before buying that next jersey.

Seriously though, it's that one can't look at their current roster and then project the next 3, 4 seasons on it. Will Schenn be with the team forever? Ask any Bruins fan that has an '05 Thornton jersey what they think about "franchise players". Do Komisarek and Beauchemin anchor our D for the length of their contracts? Remember that Kubina was a highly touted high-cost free agent signing of similar age.

Steen, Colaiacovo, and Wellwood sure looked like future bright lights for the team back on 05, didn't they? When Pascal Leclaire set the NHL on fire for the Blue Jackets in 07, could we really guess that in a year he'd be supplanted and then become a Senator? How about when Wade Redden and Zdeno Chara/Joe Corvo were part of a threatening Ottawa power play?

Only two goaltenders have actually stuck with their team in this sample, All Stars Ryan Miller and Tim Thomas. Toronto managed to run through 3-4 guys, Montreal at least 4, Boston parted ways with promising young goalie Hannu Toivonen, not to mention a goalie a year removed from a Calder in Raycroft.

The NHL's a crazy place, players come and go with incredible frequency, doesn't matter if they're young, expensive, or a "sure thing". Just a little perspective for all us future-crazed sports fans.

Did trading Stralman actually free up space?

2009-07-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

So the Leafs have traded Anton Stralman, Colin Stuart, and a 7th round pick in exchange for Wayne Primeau and a 2nd.

First off, there's still some confusion over Stralman's status with regards to waiver eligibility, and in looking it over I see I was wrong the last time I looked it up too:

The Leafs signed Anton Stralman to a 3 year entry level contract on May 16, 2007. Stralman was born on August 1, 1986, meaning that he was still technically 20 years old at the time of the signing, but according to the NHL he was 21 for the purposes of waiver eligibility (as player age is decided by the calendar year he turns 21, not the player's age the day he signs).

Players signing their first NHL contract at the age of 21 are waiver exempt for 3 years or until they have played 60 NHL games, according to NHLscap. Stralman's 38 games played last year added to his 50 the year before mean that he will be waiver eligible this year.

So the short answer is yes, trading Stralman gets one NHL defenseman off the roster. 3 more to go...

*****

With that in mind, is this a bad trade? It's tough to say.

Trading Stralie as he is for a 2nd is decent market value, and considering that he's likely too far down on the depth chart to make the club after camp calling him up next year would be impossible (or force us to do what we were doing last season, with the rotating carousel of defensemen). Unless he was going to have a massive showing at camp it's probably for the best that we got what assets we could.

Also, knowing Burke, this is another "give the kid a shot" move, letting someone go so that they can find success elsewhere. It's possible that Stralman asked for a trade, it's possible that he was considering bolting to Sweden.

On the flipside, this is exactly the kind of trade that has been historically biting the Leafs in the ass. Stralman's ceiling is high, and he was coming off career highs in points in both the AHL and NHL as well as improved defensive stats over his rookie season, despite what public perception of his play was. Stralman was not a regressing player, he was an improving one, and there's every chance to believe that if he can crack a lineup we'll be moaning about it later.

Also, this is a salary dump on Calgary's part, albeit a small one. They're a team right up against the salary cap, they're supposed to be paying for the priviledge of getting money off the books. So why did we trade two young guys and a pick? I'd be much happier with this trade if we'd actually added to our draft pool, but we didn't (and for the nay sayers that want to say 7th rounders never amount to resources, Stralman was a 7th round pick and he gave us 88 games and evidently some trade leverage).

There's also the issue of depth. I just made a post about the Leafs' success rate without Kaberle in the lineup in the event he goes, but Stralman was a big part of those games in terms of PP time and outlet passing. Beyond Schenn and Stralman, the Leafs blueline prospects were incredibly thin on talent, and are now even more so. There's also nobody on the Marlies or even close to the roster in the pipeline who possesses the same skill set as Stralman. 3 years down the line, when we've ditched just about all our blue line corps, will we be glad we dumped Stralie with nobody else to take a puck-moving role on our defense for one more year of Mike Van Ryn and Jonas Frogren?

The expectation this offseason was that we would get younger, and that we would add scoring talent. This trade does neither, and in the last few days all we've seen from Burke is the intention of dumping 23 year olds from the thinnest parts of our depth chart.

All told, it's hard to be ecstatic about getting a 2nd and a 33 year-old for two younger guys and a pick, especially for a team that has historically paid dearly for not developing it's players. But there's every chance that both Stralman and Stuart never play an NHL game again. There's also every chance that Stralman finds a way to live up to his potential. I'd give it about 50/50. But Burke had to do something, and this deal was certainly that.

Better Know a Leaf: Jeff Finger

2009-07-26T23:32:00.001-07:00

Finger Money
-noun
1. Being paid an amount that is not commensurate with one's value.
2. $14 million dollars over 4 years.
ex. I wanted the team to sign him, but then I found out he wanted Finger Money.

On today's segment of Better Know a Leaf, we'll be looking at last year's big free agent splash Jeff Finger.

Jeff was born December 18th 1979 in Houghton Michigan. He was drafted 240th overall in the 1999 entry draft by the Colorado Avalanche. He played in the NHL for the first time in the 2006-2007 season, notching a goal and four assists in 22 games. He spent the following season on the Avs full-time, going 8-11-19 with a +12 rating in 72 games.

Following his first full season in the NHL, Finger was signed to a 4 year, 14 million dollar contract by the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1st, 2008, on which day the term "Finger Money" was added to the public lexicon of Leaf bashing.

Now, first a sample of the total BS floating around the web about Finger:

via sportsnet

Assets

Plays a steady game from the back end and usually limits his mistakes. Can log plenty of ice time and is a solid team-first player.

Flaws

Has never put up great offensive numbers and probably never will. Isn't a physical player, despite his 6-1, 205-pound frame.

Now, I believe I'd covered some of this in a previous post just after the Finger signing, but I'll reiterate. Last year Finger put up 136 hits, good enough for 2nd on the Leafs and 30th among all NHL defensemen. His 158 blocked shots were good enough for first on the team and 18th overall for an NHL defenseman. Sounds to me like he's using that 6-1 205-pound frame pretty well.

Plus he can do this. And this.

Now, as for the "never put up great offensive numbers" bit, it's worth noting Jeff had 48 points in 55 games in the USHL as a 21 year-old. In even-strength scoring last season, Finger's 6 goals are tied for 15th in the NHL among defensemen, and his 15 assists tie him for 36th. Both of those numbers, by the way, lead the Leafs in even-strength scoring on the blueline. Finger's first goal as a Leaf was scored on November 25th, against the Thrashers.

Are those great offensive numbers? Not at first, it's hard to get excited over 23 points in 66 games. But that production is certainly valuable, and the fact that Finger was able to outscore two players in Kaberle and Kubina (who are paid more and are seasoned NHL vets) at even strength is pretty significant.

Now, Finger's had his mental lapses in the zone, and I'll never forget his performance on Wendel Night. But those nights happen for a player, and hopefully with more experience at the NHL level he can tighten up his game even more.

*****

There are 30 teams in the NHL, meaning that theoretically there are 120 top-4 defensemen in this league. Finger's being paid like a top-4 guy, and statwise he actually comes out pretty well given his lack of PP time (6th on the team in minutes, behind Van Ryn who played half as many games). If anything, it's hard to argue that he's not worth the money on this team for what he provides. Derek Morris just signed a similar contract with the Bruins and stat-wise they're almost the same player... except that Finger is the clear winner in terms of hits and shots blocked.

Unfortunately for Jeff, he's become the kind of Leaf that will always be known for his reputation, an overpaid AHL calibre player, than for his on-ice deeds. Hopefully he can put on a good enough performance in the next few years of his contract that he won't be remembered as a raspberry by most of the fan base.

Life without Kabby?

2009-07-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of scuttlebutt about Kaberle and the moving of. We've gone from "definitely trading him to Boston" to Burke saying "hey now, this is Tomas friggin Kaberle. I'm not just gonna go trade him for some money-grubbing one season wonder over here." And good for him. But the fact remains that we have a logjam on D and Kabby remains our most tradable asset, so we might as well talk about it.

The main concern with Leafs fans and enemies alike is the state of Toronto's offense without their smooth skating cross-ice passer. After all, who wants to watch the Maple Leafs re-enact the Ottawa Senators 08-09 season?

But quite honestly, we're talking about a 31 point player who played 57 games last year. Is Kabby really the lynchpin of our offense?

So I figured, why not just take a look at how we did without the guy?

With Kaberle in the Leafs roster:

Record: 22-26-9 (0.464 win %)
Average GF/game: 2.96

Without Kaberle in the Leafs roster:

Record: 12-9-4 (0.520 win %)
Average GF/game: 3.24

So um, yeah. Huh. Without Kabby in the roster the Leafs managed to put up a better winning percentage and more goals per game. Not even I was expecting that one.

It's also worth noting that Kaberle missed most of the month of March, which was also when the team was missing Dominic Moore and Nik Antropov due to trades. As such, this month may give us a look into how the team might play out next year:

March w/o Kabby:
Record: 6-6-0
Average GF/game: 3.08
PP%: 21.9
PK%: 77.5

Defensemen (games played):
Finger: 12
Frogren: 3
Harrison:1
Kubina: 12
Oreskovic: 9
Schenn: 12
Stralman: 9
Van Ryn: 2
White: 12

Note that our powerplay % in the March games Kabby missed was actually better than our average for the whole season, as was (sadly) our PK.

*****

So, some things worth taking a huge grain of salt for:
The Leafs definitely got an added boost from Gerber and the defensive play of guys like Devereaux and Ondrus. Also, we're talking about a tiny sample size here, about a third of a season when the Leafs happened to get pretty hot. And there's no real way to factor Kubina out of the time Kabby had off.

But Scott, what does it all mean?

Nothing definitive, that's for sure.

Even so, the numbers are implying what I was thinking all this time, that while Kaberle's a good player the Leafs never really seemed to miss him as much as some would like to think. The Leafs got hot around last third of the season, but it seems suspicious that they managed to do so without two of the most highly thought of players on their roster, Kaberle and Antropov.

Is Kaberle a quality player? Most assuredly yes. Can we live without him, assuming we can nab an acceptable return back? I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say yes. It would certainly help if either Van Ryn or Beauchemin can re-discover the ability to put up 30 or so points, or if Stralman comes back with a good showing, though.

Now, if Kabby were to remain with us, well then. Wouldn't that be an interesting D corps...

Is Patrick Sharp the right guy for the Leafs?

2009-07-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

he certainly wouldn't make a bad-looking Leaf

Chicago's cap situation has got the vultures circling, and there's been a lot of press and talk about Patrick Sharp and his 3.9 million dollar contract being the magical salve that the franchise needs.

First off, it's been reported many times that including the bonus cushion it's entirely possible for Chicago to ice a competitive team and remain under the cap without trading anyone except Brent Sopel. If Chicago doesn't see a deal they like, they aren't actually under a whole lot of pressure to pull the trigger.

The excellent Leaf dudes at MLHS have been throwing around ideas for what exactly that might entail, knowing full well that whatever we give up must be low in salary in order to make the deal work. Picks, and prospects like Tlusty or Stefanovich, are being thrown around as ideas.

*****

But let's just get some things straight here. Sharp is not really a "young gun" unless you're also willing to call Ponikarovsky a young gun, as they're only a year apart and Sharp will be 28 this December. Sharpy's entering the prime of his career, and what we've seen is likely all we're going to get from the guy.

Sharp has never been a PPG player in the AHL. He'd never scored 20 goals until his 4th season in the NHL, his second with Chicago who got him for a song (Matt Ellison, currently of the KHL's Dynamo Riga, and a 3rd rounder). He'd also never scored more than 35 points until he was 26, when it just so happened that some true young phenoms in the form of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane showed up on his team.

In true keeping with the easy, unscientific research that I've been doing over the past little while, I looked back into Sharp's past game logs and counted the times he'd factored in on a scoring play (either with a goal or assist) alongside either of Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews.

2007-2008
62 points
32 with Kane/Toews, 51.6% of total production

2008-2009
44 points
23 with Kane/Toews, 52.2% of total production

So what we have here is a slow-developing scoring winger who just happened to hit his prime at the same time that two young franchise players come into town, who have figured into half of his total production in the past two years.

(it's worth noting that Sharp missed a significant portion of the 2008/2009 season, extrapolated to 82 games he'd net around 55 points, lower than the previous year. It's also worth noting that Sharp's shooting percentage was .172 in his 36 goal campaign, higher than the league norm and his highest ever. As his percentage levelled off last year, so did his estimated production)

As I said in my last post, I don't think goal scoring will be as big a problem as some are implying next season, but the fact remains that we lack top 6 players. However, Sharp had never produced like one until his team suddenly had a dearth of offensive talent, and I'm not even counting Martin Havlat or Robert Lang yet.

*****

Don't get me wrong, Sharp's a talented individual and were he to be a Leaf I'm sure he'd put up some points. But I don't think the fears among the fan base that he's more of a complimentary player than a game-breaker are unfounded, and I'm not sure that we need a 50-60 point player as bad as some think. In my mind 50-60 points is about right for what a player getting good minutes and PP time should have, it's not an exceptional total.

I wouldn't mind having Sharp on this team, but it's hard for me to come up with any good ways to think about it. Just Exelby for Sharp? Nah. Give up Stajan or Koolie? Both of them are either par for or out-producing Sharp at their age.

And why would we ever considering trading Tlusty (who is a PPG player in the AHL) with his age and potential, or Stefonovich and his near limitless offensive possibility? Doesn't trading anybody younger than Sharp with a smaller cap hit seem counter-productive for a rebuilding team? And with a pick? Especially as Sharp doesn't solve our needs at centre (he took fewer faceoffs than Stajan, Grabs, Moore, and Mitchell last year).

No, the only way this trade makes sense for Toronto is if we can do it for defensemen only, and if we don't have to give up any young guys with potential. And I have an extremely hard time seeing Chicago bite on Ian White.

And let's be honest, late bloomer, shortly removed from a close to 40 goal season, 4 million dollar contract, complimentary scoring forward. You all know what I'm thinking.

get ready for the fist pump!

Offseason Boredom Ramblings

2009-07-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

A few days ago the Columbus Dispatch reported that Sharks GM Doug Wilson had turned down an offer to trade Christian Ehrhoff for Jason Chimera.

Chimera is a 30 year-old energy guy with blazing speed, a defensively sound player that the Sharks are in need of. Christian Ehrhoff is a 27 year-old Anton Stralman, a puck-moving defenseman possessing decent skating and offensive ability along with occasional catastrophic lapses in his own end.

Of course Wilson turned this trade down. As the departed John Ferguson Jr. showed us time and time again, speedy checking grinders who can play defense can be found for nothing. Bates Battaglia, Ben Ondrus, Boyd Devereaux, Dominic Moore, all of those guys played decent roles for the team and were had for no assets given up in return.

Which brings me to what this has to do with the Leafs.

No team should ever have to give up draft picks, young assets, or developing players in order to add bottom six role players. Unless the player in question is very good at what he does, it's just never worth the return. The free agency pool and waiver wire are full of these guys.

So what the fuck, Cliff Fletcher?

*****

Pierre McGuire, during his orgasm-laden rant over the Leafs drafting Luke Schenn in 2008, took the time to state that "the rebuild is on in Toronto." Except it wasn't. In fact, it didn't start until Brian Burke took the helm of the club partway through the season.

Why might I say that?

Jamal Mayers:
This past season was described as "disappointing" by Mayers, in his first year with his home club he hit his lowest point total since 2004. Brought in as a defensive influence to help Toronto's abysmal power play, his contributions added up to a league-worst special teams unit.

Now, people have spoken glowingly of his dressing room performance, and on that I have no basis for critique. But we gave up a 3rd round pick for a 33 year old that added neither the offensive touch in the checking role we wanted nor the improved play on the penalty kill that we needed. In fact, Ron Wilson went on to quote the call-ups of Devereaux and Ondrus as the reason for our improved PK rate in the latter stages of the season, two players who were already in the Leafs system when Mayers was acquired.

Ryan Hollweg:
Seen here is Hollweg effectively ending the season of a promising 18 year-old. In full view of the Leafs' own top-flight rookie 18 year-old.

I was at that game. No matter what Wilson said after the fact, what Hollweg did was inexcusable, and it's ensuing penalty and demoralizing effect on the roster lost us a game we were in control of. Ryan, I hope you'll read this some day, because I've been to a few Leafs games in my time, some good efforts and some bad losses. That day was the only time I've ever felt embarrassed to be a Leafs fan in my own building. I hope you never play another game in the NHL.

We gave up a 5th round pick. He played 25 games. Enough said.

*****

These moves seemed a little suspect at the time, and now that we know the results I can stand by the statement that no team should ever have to give up real assets in order to pick up players of this calibre.

Burke added character and grit in Brad May and didn't have to give up a single draft pick (although he could have). Thus far in his tenure Burke has never given in to the temptation to use draft picks and prospects in order to solve the teams' immediate problems.

Combined with the draft picks or prospects we lost adding Schenn, Grabovski, and getting rid of McCabe, Fletcher's interim era with the Leafs wasn't really the beginning of a rebuild. While some of the results of his moves are encouraging, the fact is that Fletcher was continuing in the tradition of burning up the future in order to solve the needs of the present.

We've gone a full season without giving up a draft choice for an ill-advised deal. Hopefully Burke's starting his own tradition.

The Leafs might never score another goal again

2009-07-11T00:16:00.001-07:00

At least, that's how you might feel if you've been buying into the "the Leafs are tougher on D and in goal, but who will score?" hype that's been floating around since Burkie made his major moves. The Leafs lack elite scoring forwards, it's true, in fact they lack true first line scoring players.

So I decided to take a look around the league last year at teams that also lacked real point producers. In this totally scientific survey utterly not conducted because of baseless speculation, I basically just checked team rosters for a lack of players who had around 75 points, and lacked more than one 30 goal scorer.

The results were pretty much what you'd expect from the bottom-feeding section of the NHL (after all, teams around us in the standings and all) and so the Islanders, Kings, and Avalanche all fall into this category.

The teams that placed above us who lacked singular point producers were: New York, Florida, Montreal, Minnesota, and Edmonton. Which is interesting as there's two playoff teams and two 9th place teams there, and if the Leafs are looking to show improvement with their roster then it would be these teams we can reasonably aspire to. Which is actually incredibly depressing, but I digress.

It's worth noting that none of the teams we might aspire to take the place of next year scored more goals than the Leafs (who were 10th in the league for GF). I then averaged their goals against over the season.

Average GA for "competitive" teams
229

Leafs GA from last season
293

Ffffffh. So the entirely unscientific argument can be made that if the Leafs can score around the same amount of goals next season and chop our goals against down by, say, 60 or so then we should reasonably be close to a playoff spot.

*****

So let's just ignore the difficulties of cutting our GA for next season down by 20%, shall we, and move onto the question of whether or not it's reasonable to expect our roster to still be in the top 10 in the league for goals for with our recent subtractions from the roster.

The notable subtractions for the Leafs (thus far) are Nik Antropov, Dominic Moore, and Pavel Kubina, who combined for a grand total of 47 goals and 107 points last year.

Now the fun part is that we can track how the Leafs did in the last 30 games of the season without Antropov and Moore, so let's do that.

After the trade deadline the Leafs put up a 15-11-4 record for a .566 winning percentage. They scored 102 goals during that stretch, 41% of their total for the season, which works to about 3.4 goals for/game. That's better than the 2.8 GF/game that they'd been scoring previously.

During that 30 game stretch Pavel Kubina put up 16 points, with 4 powerplay goals and 10 total power play points, and two game-winning goals. That's production that will be missed, but I have to believe that whomever fills the void in Kubina's absence will be able to at least chip in some points on the power play.

One worry is Jason Blake, our leading goal and point scorer from last season, as his time spent with Moore was given a lot of credit towards his resurgence in the second half. We can also track how Blake did without Moore:

30 GP
25 pts
8 goals

So we can see that without his best buddy Moore he was still able to put up a third of his total goals and almost half of his assists in the last third of the season. I think it's safe to say that whatever happens with Blake next year, his production will not drop because of a lack of Moore exposure.

*****

So is the Leafs' offense going to suffer next season? Probably, a little at least. Is it going to be a major problem? I don't think so, it's entirely possible for this group to show improvement in the standings with the group of forwards it has, so long as we can keep the puck out of our net.

But to be quite honest, people were predicting that our goals for would drop when Sundin, Tucker, and McCabe got shown the door, and it didn't happen, they were predicting that it would drop again when we got rid of Moore and Antropov and it certainly hasn't happened yet. The Leafs are lacking in truly skilled scoring forwards, but they've been able to score more than enough with simple hockey and hard work, and we have enough depth of players with some offensive skill that we can count on some goals going in eventually.

Yes we may have benefitted from a lack of pressure in the last third of the year, we also might have benefitted from getting to know Ron Wilson hockey and learning to play with our new additions. At this point I'm not willing to say anything for definite, but it doesn't look like scoring is going to be enough of a problem that we can't take a "wait and see" approach to how our offensive corps develops. One free agent signing or trade incumbent isn't going to push this offense over the top, and so we might as well leave some room open for one of our many new young forwards to hopefully surprise us come camp.

Everything old is... uh... slightly less old again

2009-07-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

So another free agency period has come and with the Leafs' cap situation we look about set (aside from, you know, that one major signing in our weakest position that I won't talk about just yet).

Thing is, this all feels slightly familiar. In fact, it seems very familiar. Of course, as with all blogging speculation, I was totally wrong about the aftermath of our last defensive logjam (though I would like to brag that I totally called Carlo being the odd man out later in the season).

That doesn't mean I'm not going to baselessly speculate again though! After all, what would be the point of this blog if I didn't?

...

Well anyway, onto the nitty gritty of things.

Currently our defense looks a little something like this:

Kaberle
Beauchemin
Komisarek
Van Ryn
Schenn
Finger
Exelby
White
Stralman
Frogren

Oof. That's... a lot of guys.

Luckily, I've learned that because Stralman signed his contract when he was 20, and has not played 160 games in the NHL, he will still be waiver exempt next season. However, since Frogren signed his contract when he was 27 and has played a season in the NHL he will no longer be waiver exempt. (thanks, nhlscap!)

Which means that once again, Stralman is our best candidate for "get buried in the minors until we can sort the rest of our roster out".

As new additions I severely doubt that Komisarek, Beauchemin, and Exelby are going to do anything other than play good minutes with the team. Schenn will likely stay with the club as well, Burke likes him and sending him down would be a PR disaster.

So assuming that our roster will consist of the 4 of...

Komisarek
Beauchemin
Schenn
Exelby

who takes the other spots?

Van Ryn: The bastard child of a salary dump, Van Ryn is actually probably one of the better Dmen on the team. Unfortunately now that Colaiacovo is gone somebody had to catch jelly bones, and it happened to be him. As a player we never really planned to have on the club in the first place he's panned out well, but that doesn't mean he's become part of our future plans.

Why he could stay: Good presence in the offensive zone, solid overall play. Shatters glass with his face. Injuries place his trade value at near zero.

Why he could go: Downright dreadful injury history means we can't count on him as a roster player. Relatively large cap hit. Nearing 30, he may be getting too old to factor into the future of the young club. Will be a UFA after this season.

Finger: Our most contentious free agent signing of last season, he is the living embodiment of the fact that you always overpay in free agency. Negative media reaction was definitely overplayed, Finger was largely solid and played with a good physical edge (TSN also had him listed as a top free agent mere hours before Pierre Maguire spouted off about his contract on-air). All in all, as a free agent signing we didn't really give anything up for the guy, and he played in a style that was lacking from the roster previously.

Why he could say: Hits in every zone, blocks shots, holds some offensive skill. Salary makes him nearly impossible to trade.

Why he could go: He still hasn't proved himself one way or another yet. His inexperience with the speed of the NHL game still showed in several games last season. He'll be 30 in December, and will still likely have question marks all over his game by then.

White: A rare Leafs draft pick still playing with the club, he enjoyed increased responsibility last year as injuries took their toll and Wilson began punishing Kaberle by cutting his minutes. While I've made many a post on his mediocre offensive skills, the fact is that he acquitted himself as well as can be expected from a player of his size and skill level.

Why he could stay: His age and cap hit make him an attractive depth defenseman. Always stays healthy. Makes good transition passes out of the zone. As a homegrown Leafs pick he makes a statement for younger players earning their way to the team through the minor league system.

Why he could go: His value might never be this high again. The added depth this year almost pushes him completely off the team in terms of actual skill level and physical assets. Did poorly on the penalty kill, and while a self-styled offensive defenseman he doesn't produce as much as the shots and opportunities he takes should warrant.

Frogren: A free agent signing by Fletcher to add toughness to the line-up and ease Stralman's transition into the NHL, the manner of his signing ended up costing us a draft pick. While his hit count was impressive over the season, he tended to roam around the defensive zone and generally didn't take to the North American game as well as we might have hoped.

Why he could stay: A low cap hit makes him attractive. Plays a tougher, gritty, Burke style of play.

Why he could go: At 29 next season he'll be older than some other physical defensemen in the line-up, notably Schenn, Komisarek, and Exelby. For a defenseman who is not expected to contribute offensively his defensive play should be spotless, but he needs work.

Kaberle: The last one, and a big one. By far the best player in terms of talent and experience on the team, he also possesses a great contract. If we wanted to move him badly, I can't imagine there isn't a team out there that won't eventually break down and pony up assets to get him.

Why he could stay: Is another Leafs draft pick, and a veteran mainstay on the team. We would be hard pressed to replace his skills on the roster, especially if Stralman can't figure out his defensive game, and losing simply because we lack a good passer on the back end would just make us the Ottawa Senators.

Why he could go: Is extremely affordable for teams looking to compete, and is very skilled. The departure of Kubina likely makes him a little more uncomfortable in the dressing room, and he was non-commital on his future with the club last season. Had confrontations with Wilson last season, and as the oldest player on the defense he may not be around by the time we're ready to compete.

My baseless predictions? Kaberle and White will get traded, Frogren will likely be sent down.

Why? Players get dealt when either their values or high or they've had an unproductive season but are still felt to have upside. Teams don't want another teams garbage. Kaberle is easily our most tradeable asset, and White likely has more value than any other defenseman on that list, purely because of his age and cap hit. Van Ryn and Finger are both making too much money for too little of a showing last season, and there's no good reason for any club to take them off our hands.

Frogren is just getting left out due to our recent signings, there's at least 4 people on the squad that can fill his role but do it better. Maybe if his game undergoes some major revelations he'll make the decision harder, but as of now it's just hard to see where he fits in at his age and role.

I think I'm correct in saying that we've likely overpaid by about 500K-1M for Komisarek and Beauchemin, but I don't mind the signings. If we replace Kaberle with some prospect/draft pick, and factor in shipping out Kubina for Exelby, replacing May with Orr, and losing Cujo for... anybody then our roster gets significantly younger and tougher this year, both good things and both guaranteed by Burke before the offseason started in earnest. Good times.

I hate you, Dany Heatley

2009-06-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

just look at him

I've never been a fan of good ol' Dany, in fact in this post I do believe I advocated death by Bell before last season started.

Except this time I can't hate on Heater for anything he's done on the ice, the Senators were down right inoffensive last season (and not just because they didn't score a whole lot), and as a Toronto resident with relatives in Ottawa I can empathize with the desire to leave the our nation's capital as soon as possible.

No, this time I've got my knives out because Heatley's whining, petulant unprofessionalism might actually be good for the Sens. A team that became top heavy, without the high draft picks to fill their roster with ready-made talent, I was looking forward to the team languishing under the weight of high-price NTC contracts and the lack of overall depth that came with them.

After all, none of Ottawa's stars would want to leave the city that loved them and gave them so much, right? The Leafs had to pay people to get off this team, and to kickstart the rebuild had to tell the face of the franchise for over a decade he wasn't needed anymore. Even when a couple of losing seasons had piled up, all anybody wanted to be was a Leaf.

Unfortunately that's not the case, and the Heatley trade has the makings of a move that could add more youth and depth to a Senators team that was floundering under their own efforts to provide it. As with the Yashin deal, the Senators can benefit from their childish stars having no attachment to their franchise, and reap the benefits of adding people to their team that want to give their fans the finger.

So I hate you, Dany Heatley. I hate you for not making the Sens pay for their mistakes, and I hate you for hating Ottawa. I hope today you realize that no team wants a quitter, at least not for a price Ottawa's willing to pay.

*****

As I'm writing the rumour going around is Penner, Cogliano, and Smid for Heatley. Not world breaking, but certainly adding respectable roster bodies.

Wait, there was a draft this weekend?

2009-06-28T22:23:00.001-07:00

Back from cottage country, I had to listen to AM 640 on the radio, then rely on text messages when that cut out.

Some thoughts:

We actually managed to have a draft where we didn't give up any picks during or directly before the day. Regardless of who we picked, that's a huge step in the right direction for the franchise. I know there was a lot of talk of moving up, but we need quantity period.

If Burke didn't make a move, I fully believe it's because there was no good one to be made. The Flyers were definitely the most active team in terms of trade talks out there, and once they made the Pronger deal before the draft started there was no other real player movement.

There's still potential out there. A load of teams are still in cap hell, and (apparently) Burke's intention all along was to wait until the big names in free agency were gone to unload some of our guys. Considering that somehow the Flyers managed to trade and not lose any salary in the process while actually losing two players that made up their roster last year, desperation is going to set in some time.

I'm disappointed we didn't pick up a single goaltender, if history is anything to go by it's worth taking a flyer on someone; if the draft is a crapshoot then drafting goaltenders is like trying to fish from the CN Tower. Maybe the lack of a goalie is an indication of his expectations regarding Gustavsson, though I doubt it.

Say hello to... Wade Redden? What?

2009-06-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

I'd kind of like to know what Tim Wharnsby is smoking in this article right here.

"There is belief the Maple Leafs have been zeroing in on New York Rangers defenceman Wade Redden and forward Peter Schaefer of the Boston Bruins"

This is why I hate offseason coverage, by the way. "There is belief by my son Zack and his Buzz Lightyear doll that the Leafs are coveting PJ Axelsson, in an effort to become more Swedish."

But seriously, Redden? We're talking about possibly one of the worst defensive contracts in the league Redden? The Redden who has been steadily depreciating in value since the lockout Redden?

If we're going after him, it better be because we're getting New York's 1st and Evgeny Grachev with him.

And on another note, Peter Schaefer? A 31 year-old who peaked when the Sens did, he spent all of last season buried in the minors because Boston can make better use of Shawn Thornton. The Leafs need many things, but if we need 30 year old checkers to put up 30 points why don't we just hang on to Devereaux and Hamilton? At least with Boyd we're supporting Toronto's indie music scene.

Is the logic there that Boston would love to get rid of Schaefer's 2.1 million (good lord who would pay him that much? Right, Bryan Murray) salary ? Because they didn't seem to have a problem just burying him in the minors ala Mark Bell.

The article goes on to talk goaltending, mentioning Burke's interest in JS Giguere. I hope he means he's interested in asking how his son's therapy is going, because there's no way we're paying 10 million for goaltending next year if Brunnstrom doesn't work out. Apparently the Leafs are on the list of teams that Giggy would accept a trade to, despite being about geographically as far away as you can get from his family (and son's medical needs). I guess making the teams you'd accept a trade to public is now de rigueur for players with a no trade clause.

*********

Filtering out all the BS, it's pretty obvious that these deals are being postulated because they help cap-tight teams shed salary. But the Redden deal would break Burke's previous statements about not wanting to carry salary past two years from now, as he's getting paid until 2014 (lol) and is of questionable value. The Giguere deal would work great... if we could sucker anybody into paying for a constantly injured and often average goalie in Toskala.

What I will say is I will be greatly surprised if the Leafs are still picking 7th come draft time. Burke has mentioned moving up, he's mentioned moving down, and someone out there will be willing to move with him. It's Burke's big chance to really put the pressure on other GMs and change the face of this team, and I can't believe he'll allow it to pass by.

Y'all take Brian Burke way too seriously

2009-04-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while, school has been keeping me fairly busy and there's enough Leaf coverage out there that I can get my fix leaving snide comments on other blogs.

But Burke's been getting a lot of exposure lately, and for once I don't really see a post out there that echoes my point of view: That Burke is laughing at each and every single person giving his claims serious exposure.

Since the offseason started Burke has said two things: Our goal next year is the playoffs, our goal this year is to move up as much as we can to try and get the guy we want most. That's simply it, and the amount of writing being given to those simple concepts is baffling.

But let's put some things in perspective here:

1. Burke said this: "The goal for next year is to make the playoffs," Burke said. "If that's not the goal of every GM, they should get out of the business."

Burke is not guaranteeing the Leafs a playoff spot next year (we leave that to coaches who desperately love the taste of crow). He is not saying he will build our club into a contending team overnight. He's saying that our guys will be expected to do their best to win every game, regardless of circumstances. They won't win, but that's irrelevant; the point is that even though next year will be a losing season for us Burke is making it clear that losing will never be acceptable to this organization. It sounds like a bold claim, but it's really just a very simple affirmation of some basic values.

2. Burke also said this: "We'll immediately attempt to move up," Burke said during a morning news conference. "We're going to talk to everyone between us and the first pick and see what the landscape is.

"We're going to see what it costs and we're going to try and move up."

Is that claiming Tavares as Leaf property? No. We'll see what it costs? Try to move up? Burke sounds like a guy prospecting nicer apartments. This statement doesn't say anything significant either. Every GM in the league that isn't picking #1 should be looking to move up. Every GM in the league should want to pick #1. They usually don't because the asking price is often unreasonable. The fact that Burke has vocalized this sentiment doesn't somehow make it a prophecy.

Saying that when we play we'll play to win and when we pick high we want to pick the highest isn't exactly throwing down a gauntlet here, it's simple stuff. Burke is making a statement, but it's not a statement for the Isles, or for anyone else in the league. It's a statement for the fans and players that the organization will never be satisfied with mediocrity, and it's a sad reflection on the state of this franchise that those words somehow seem shocking or bold.

Remember, Burke knows the media well and is a guy with a sense of humour when it comes to people shoving microphones in his face. Near the end of the season he was asked about signing NCAA free agents on Hockey Night in Canada. When Tyler Bozak's name came up Burke said "Who?" The name was repeated and Burke said "Ah... yeah, I think I've heard of him." with a chuckle before launching into his response. Weeks later, Bozak was signed by the club, along with Christian Hanson. I have no doubt the guy right now is having a little chuckle over the furor that his basic statements have caused.

Furor which has spread out into the blogosphere, such as some smug articles here and here. Look, the media's tendencies to blow little things out of proportion when Toronto is involved are almost legendary, do we really need to do this all over again? I also love that posts specifically directed towards media coverage still manage to take the usual cheap shots at the franchise, just because. Did anybody stop to think that maybe Burke was stating the obvious? That maybe this stuff was important for Leafs players and fans to hear? Or that maybe, just maybe, Burke knew this stuff would blow up in the papers and he's having a little fun with all of you?

Tank update!

2009-02-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

Well the All-Star weekend has passed and the Leafs are finally, unequivocally a losing club. The past little while has been tough, but at least now finally we can look to the future with a clear mind free of the rollercoaster that is the lead-up to the playoffs.

With that in mind, just what picture is shaping up in the standings? Are we close to a lottery pick with the roster we've got now, or do we need a helpful push?

As it stands, the bottom 10 teams are (worst to best):

New York Islanders: 35 pts
Atlanta Thrashers: 39 pts
Ottawa Senators: 41 pts
St. Louis Blues: 44 pts
Tampa Bay Lighting: 44 pts
Nashville Predators: 45 pts
Toronto Maple Leafs: 46 pts
LA Kings: 47 pts
Colorado Avalanche: 47 pts
Vancouver Canucks: 52 pts (lol Sundin)

We're currently sitting in 7th, which is pretty funny considering that's where we ended up last year. Wait, you mean we were trying to make the playoffs last year? And Paul Maurice guaranteed it? Oh. That's actually pretty sad then.

Now being two spots out of the top 5 is pretty unacceptable considering that maybe 3 of the teams below us still had playoff aspirations in mind at the beginning of the season. We can't afford to burn more picks moving up, either.

*****

If I had to guess the movers in our little group of misery, I'd say that it's doubtful any of the teams currently above us in the standings will drop down below our standing, Colorado will get Stastny and maybe Sakic back at some point, the Kings are simply better than us, and Vancouver has to shake out of it's funk sometime. All of the teams above the bottom ten are looking to make a playoff push and I'd bet most of them get more competitive as the season wears on.

As for the teams below us, the Nashville Predators have got the talent to rise above us. The question lies with their ownership, whether they feel the market can take failure and whether they can even afford to pay the players they have.

Tampa Bay appears to finally be gelling as a team after a huge summer turnover and a laughable coaching mess. They've won 6 of their last 10 and generally Lecavalier, St. Louis, and Smith are enough to beat our entire team. If our boys in blue do their part and lose on the 12th I think there's a good chance we'll see ourselves sinking a spot in the standings.

St. Louis lost their stud dman over the break and weren't impressed enough with Alex Pietrangelo to keep him up (the concussion Hollweg gave him likely didn't help). Steen and Carlo have been getting them points, but not wins, and I think we'll be in a dogfight with the Blues over draft positioning. Still, they're not far away and have two games in hand on us.

Ottawa. Excuse me while I chuckle quietly to myself for a little while.

Alright, despite the Sens protestations that they were turning a new leaf after the break the team has continued floundering, with a losing record in it's last 10. They have three games on us, and could rise above the Leafs if those turn into three wins. Unfortunately the Sens, much like the Leafs, haven't strung three wins together all season. With their depth becoming suspect and their goaltending issues still not solved, it remains to be seen if they're actually any better than the Leafs this year. Like the Preds, the Sens will need to decide if they're selling hard at the deadline and that will have the greatest impact on their draft.

The Atlanta Thrashers and New York Islanders are just terrible. Awful. We could sell off everyone above 23, call up the entirety of the Marlies and I doubt we'd be able to pass either at this point. Well, maybe Atlanta.

*****

Now, considering all that I can see us maybe sliding down two more spots to land in 5th, enough for a slim lottery chance and probably a damn good player. There are three teams within two points of us but it's hard to imagine all three putting together good streaks when they'll likely want to become deadline sellers just like us. And no matter how hard we sell, the bottom three looks too tough to crack at this point.

So, who wants to come rig the draft lottery with me?

Did anyone see Sifers at all?

2009-01-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

So Sifers played just under 7 minutes last night with only one shift in the third period, despite playing over 20 earlier in the season and playing decently well at that. He took some heavy hits but no mention of an injury was made, nor did he leave the bench at any time.

Wilson in his post game noted that a virus has been making the rounds through the team, the defense especially, and he tapped Finger as an example. Except Finger played 18 minutes last night, despite taking two penalties that resulted in 5-on-3's. How did Finger deserve almost triple Sifers' ice time? He certainly wasn't any good on the power play.

So why was Sifers effectively benched for the game? He didn't stand out particularly, either good or bad. He certainly didn't put us in as many rough spots as Finger and Kubina did tonight. And if it was a virus tearing him up and causing lazy play from our vets, why wasn't one or both of Stralman or Kronwall called up to provide fresher bodies? If we needed the "toughness" that Deveaux and I'm supposing Newbury were to provide why haven't we given Phil Oreskovic, a 6' 3" defenseman from North York who has 56 PIMs in 32 games in the AHL, a tryout?

Also, upon the subject of the Leafs' decent amount of blueline scoring in the postgame, Wilson named White as someone whose contributions have been pleasantly surprising. White has 4 points in 20 games as a blueliner, and his assist tonight was so ghostly it might have been given to Alexei Cherepanov (too soon?). What is White slipping into Wilson's beverages to him believe he's contributing offensively? Especially as our power play has been atrocious during White's tenure on D. How does a productive tenure at forward justify the offensive minutes given to White on the blueline?

Ian White should be a forward right now.

2009-01-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

Alright, first off: Full Disclosure. I am a White hater; I've stated repeatedly and emphatically how, statistically and physically speaking, there simply isn't enough there to warrant the ice time he's getting over just about anybody else in the organization.

But he's been playing pretty well lately as a steady presence on our blueline, and though I still cringe to see him out there at crucial times in either zone, his screw-ups haven't resulted in as many goals as most of the guys making somewhere between 5 and 10 times the money he's making have allowed.

But all that needs to change.

When White clawed his way out of the press box he had to do it as a forward. He promptly scored a goal his first shift in, then a couple games later went on an impressive 6 game point streak, netting 7 points in his first 8 games back.

He then put two 8 game pointless streaks together around a pair of goals in his time afterwards, almost all of which has been spent as a defenseman. Since his hot streak, White's production has been three points in 19 games, and his shooting percentage has been creeping closer and closer to his career average (0.042), residing at 0.082 after a 0.32 clip during his point streak (a fact that makes the stat nerd in me inexplicably pleased).

I think he's terrible at shooting from the point. He tends toward double-clutching close to the blue line when he shoots. He's way too far away for the shot that he's got to fool anybody, he never moves to change his angle, and he takes just a little too long to get it off, giving a goalie enough time to make the save.

His two goals as a defenseman? One was off a beautiful faked shot from Anton Stralman (the last good thing he did before being sent down) in which White had actually crept down to the top of the circle, leaving less ice between him and the goalie. The second was a shot that actually lost power from the blue line, striking the ice early and skipping over Ryan Miller. I think I can put this more succinctly: White is not a good enough shooter to keep on taking the shots he trends towards. He's the Jason Blake of offensive defensemen. If he's going to grow into his offensive potential he needs to either change the way he takes shots from the point, or he needs to not be there at all.

*****

Now, there's nothing wholly wrong about White not producing points if he keeps on providing stable blueline play, right? Not necessarily.

First off, he's second in shots for only to Pavel Kubina, impressive considering White has played 11 games less than him. However, White has half the points Kubina does, and from the blueline he has something like one sixth the offensive production. Or, 2 goals on 44 shots since his first 8 games (for a shooting percentage of 0.045, which happens to be his career average. Hmm...). Or, 1 assist on 42 shots in 19 games while averaging over 20 minutes. If White isn't producing any points while taking this many shots in this time it means he's not creating many offensive chances, which means he's killing our offense, especially on the power play.

Second, this team is a little bit strapped for reliable offense, especially with injuries mounting. We've scored 8 goals in 5 games after our two game blowout streak over Atlanta and Pittsburgh. White's production at forward could be a boon if he were to rediscover it.

Third, we need to figure out White's value on the trade market. If he shows he can be a productive third liner and a steady 20+ minute blueliner then he may actually be one of the best bargaining chips we have at his salary and age. We may even want to keep him if he can keep it up, although if it's the difference between White or a lottery pick at this year's draft I know which I'd make in a heartbeat. I'm also pretty sure that Ian likes scoring goals.

So for our sake, and Ian's, please Ron Wilson: make him a forward when Schenn comes back.

Good for Mats

2008-12-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

I'm happy for the guy. He was playing too well to retire, and it was plainly obvious for all to see that a) his presence on the Leafs would be detrimental to the team moving forward and b) he wasn't particularly wanted here.

There's been a lot of flack flying around about the guy since the summer. Frustrations have been (slightly) justified, and I made my position clear that Mats can do whatever he wants. It's a shame that the media had to turn this into the fiasco that it did, but this sort of thing is to be expected. I can't imagine what the Gaborik or Kovaklchuk situations would look like today if Mats had signed over the summer, but I guarantee you we'd be just as sick of that talk too.

*****

Mats is a lying dirtbag

First off, Mats and his word. He said last season that he believed in the total journey from camp to playoffs. Of course, he obviously hasn't followed through on that belief. But that's the funny thing about the future, it looks a whole lot different when it becomes the present. Mats was faced with the fact that his Leafs likely wouldn't need him come next season. As a recently married man of advancing age for a hockey player, I'm sure there was also some retirement pressure.

In the end, nobody can really speak to how they will feel about a situation until they have themselves mired in it. How many players retire and then come back? Is Jeremy Roenick to be villifieds for his lack of decision making on his career? Scott Niedermayer? Scott's indecision probably did more damage to the Ducks than Mats could have ever one to this Leafs team. Mats' statement was probably ill-advised to begin with, but perspective changes things, and all adults know that.

He owes us!

Second, the idea that Mats owed the Leafs the right to trade him, or at least an explanation of why he did what he did. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty pissed about the lack of return on a possible asset, but that's JFJ's fault, not Mats'. I'd love to have Higgins, a first, a second, and Greg Pateryn back. Then again, I'd also like Tuuka Rask, a first, second, and fourth, Brad Boyes, Mike Cammalleri, and Roberto Luongo.

Mats chose to invoke a clause that our club had given him to block any potential moves, he completed the length of his contract, and he signed as a free agent at a point in the season that is well within his right to do. Nothing that he's done so far is wrong, or abusive of the system of NHL player contracts. I can't claim that there is somehow still a debt, or "deserving" to be had, I think that's an unrealistic view of the way the world works. I'd probably be a pretty unhappy guy if I thought I deserved anything more from instances where all formal agreements have been fulfilled.

He is a greedy moneybag

First off, he's not making 10mil off this deal, it's pro-rated at 10mil. He'll make roughly 5.5 when the season ends. Second, Mats already has about as much money as I can ever conceive of existing, and I refuse to believe that he actually needed an extra $5 million to throw on his log for Christmas. It does get chilly in mansions, though.

The Canucks are a competitive team, the Sedins are an automatic scoring line, Wellwood and Demitra are both streaky, oft-injured scorers, and adding Sundin will cement the scoring and depth of that team. Defensively and in goal (once Lou's back) the team is already set.

The other "front runners"? New York? They have no cap room, and three natural centers that should be producing close to a point a game. The assertions by the press that the Rags could move enough salary off to other teams, call up rookies to take the place of vets, and basically sabotage their team to add Sundin were ridiculous. This is a team that just ditched an aging superstar in order to focus on their organizational depth, did anyone actually believe they would burn off their depth to add an aging star? No team in the league is taking a salary dump without also taking a pick or prospect, a fact that Brian Burke and Cliff Fletcher are both well aware of.

Chicago? Once again, even less cap space, and a team who doesn't really need to worry about offense regardless. This team is still a couple of seasons away from contending, their captain and top scorers have never sniffed the playoffs. Chicago did well to learn a lesson from Pittsburgh and not blow it's load too early on veteran add-ons.

Thank god he didn't sign with Montreal or Ottawa.

Him signing with other competitive, cap-strapped teams (the rumours of him signing with the Sharks, a team paying Kyle McLaren 2.5 million to play in the AHL, were too funny) were interesting in the discussions they launched, but ultimately unrealistic. We've all seen how hard it is for GMs to make moves in this league, let alone multiple ones. Vancouver actually had the cap room, had a good team, and had players Mats was familiar with.

*****

In the end, I'll never attribute malice to actions that I can understand within a logical framework. Mats didn't want to move at the deadline, he didn't want to retire, and then he had to face the cold reality of a completely open future. When he signed with a team he signed with a good one, and he did so with the only team that made logistical sense from a salary cap perspective. Vancouver loses nothing adding Sundin. Most of the other teams rumoured in the running for him had a lot to lose, and a lot more complications, and so a deal wasn't done.

Adding a conspiracy or ulterior motives to these moves makes the entire situation make less sense, not more, and so I'm willing to side with the simple explanation. Sometimes, that's just how life works.

Ho-Lee Mackinaw!

2008-11-25T00:02:00.000-08:00

I know, that's an awful headline. Let's move on.

See this guy? This guy right here? This guy is the guy.

It's hard to describe my feelings on this trade. At first I thought "wow, Stempniak's pretty good" after which point I felt horrendously bad knowing that Carlo and Steener were going.

Underperforming, definitely. Out of shape? Possibly. But they were Maple Leafs, some of the few first rounders that had made the NHL and gotten all our hope invested in them. I guess now I know a little bit of what trading Kabby might feel like.

I remember the days not so long past when I was hoping dearly each game that Carlo would be able to play, to get Wozniewski off our roster and lead us to the promised land. I remember fervently believing that a playoff spot was ours once he could put a complete season together.

I thought this was the season Steen could break out. Every once in a while he'd pull a move to gain the zone or he'd shift around a defender just like in his rookie season and I knew hope for the kid. He had one hell of a backhand.

Will they put it together in St. Louis? I think there's decent odds one of them will, the talent is still there and I believe the change in scenery will do them well. Of course, the opposite could also likely be true, Carlo could go down any day just like he did on Friday, and Steen might not ever prove himself worthy of the minutes he needs to produce. St. Louis has roles to fill, however, so minutes shouldn't be lacking for either guy.

The West is a tougher conference, however, and the Central division is not a nice one to be in, so best of luck to both of them. They'll always have a place as Leafs in my mind.

***

But Stempniak isn't without his question marks either.

Much like Steen, he has had one impressive campaign sandwiched by a couple of not as hot ones. He's been hot lately, finding offense on a pretty banged up Blues team, but the trigger wasn't pulled because of this season, it was pulled because of what he did in 06-07. Is Lee another player doomed to never repeat his great season? I certainly hope not.

Much unlike Steen, however, he's actually billed as a scorer and has put up over 20 (or even 25) goals in a season.

If anything, he's speedy and a supposed hard worker. You know, like that other guy we got from St. Louis. Let me just check how he's doi-....

Regardless of where the chips fall later on, it's hard to disagree with the logic in this trade. Neither of our guys have ever lived up to their billings. Lee has.

Oh those Habs fans...

2008-11-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

from supporting headshots from behind to supporting unfairly stuffing the all-star ballots, is there anything they won't do to blame it all on Toronto?

Dave Stubbs wrote a piece about the ballot stuffing incident calling it an "embarrassment". Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. This is hardly as embarrassing as losing your playoff spot to the Maple Leafs after giving up a two goal lead in the last game of the season. (and then losing that spot to the Islanders...)

In all seriousness for a second, the All Star Game is a joke, as is the entire balloting system. The fact that Habs fans exposed it for a sham is lessened by the fact that it was already a sham putting two guys who have never played a game this season and a goalie who is second-worst in the league onto the ballot. Honestly, if all 6 Habs players made it onto the ice I couldn't likely care less, it's popcorn entertainment and almost fitting for their (fake) centennial celebrations.

But what is embarrassing is trying to pass off behaviour clearly not in the spirit of the arrangement as having "pride" in the "tradition" and "glory" of your team like so many of the commenters on that article seem to want to do.

If Canadiens fans had managed to vote all six of their candidates onto the ballot through an organized and spirited campaign, that would be something worthy of pride. If they had done that, it would have cemented their place as the hockey city in the greatest hockey country in the world, and cemented them as the best fans in the league.

Artificially stuffing the ballot via an auto-voter doesn't show pride, it shows that Habs fans are:
a) Insecure about their hometown guys being able to make it onto the starting lineup.
b) Arrogant enough to believe that they deserve a starting lineup of Canadiens without having to organize or work for it.

It's the All Star game after all, so who cares? Apparently Canadiens fans, both far too much and far too little.

Enough with the fat boy jokes...

2008-11-17T00:04:00.000-08:00

if you hate being funny, that is. Seriously though, what needs to stop is the handwringing over Cliff's decision to dump Wellwood over the summer.

Most people at least kind of understand, or at least have some sort of faith in Cliff. For the rest, here we go:

First off, Wellwood was waived. He wasn't traded, nor was he bought out. Nothing more than missing this fact will make me instantly deride anybody who wants to tell me losing Wellwood was a bad idea, but the misconception of how he left the team is rampant among Leaf fans. It's also the most important point of this discussion.

Wellwood was also waived by the Canucks.

That's right, they saw him, or rather they saw the size of him, and they did what any sensible team would do, they cut him from their line-up. Exactly the same way the Leafs did. If the Leafs made a dumb move, then so did the Canucks a few months later.

Except something magical happened for Kyle. While given the chance to pick him up freely, nobody in the league wanted him. No GM picked up the phone, despite the dire state of certain teams' centre position (Atlanta and Erik Christensen come to mind, as does Columbus).

Kyle was depressed. So depressed, in fact, that for four days, after being called out publicly for his fitness and health issues, after being cut from a second team in six months, that he did nothing. Not hit the ice, not hit the gym. Just nothing.

He also told his agent to call around, as the Manitoba Moose had too many veterans on their roster and so could not play him.

This is important. The Vancouver Canucks waived Kyle Wellwood with the knowledge that he could not play in the AHL, and so would have to flee to Europe to find ice time.

Of course, Kyle knew this too. And when Pavol Demitra became injured after those four days, prompting his recall, every team in the NHL once again passed up the chance to add him to their roster for half price. He knew this was his last chance to ever hit the ice in North America.

The Leafs were the dumb ones in this move? Every team in the league had the chance to add Wellwood to their squad, at league minimum, and passed. If the Leafs must be kicking themselves, I guess so should 28 other GMs.

The Leafs cut Wellwood because his foreseeable work ethic and worth weren't worthy of giving him ice time. They did so with the knowledge that if he cleared waivers he could theoretically be back on the team, after conditioning in the AHL. His worth to the Canucks at the start of the season was so low that they sent him down knowing full well the good odds that they would never be able to recall him.

So let's not talk about the Leafs making a mistake here. The Canucks not only took the same actions with Kyle, they did worse. It just so happened that the rest of the league had grown disinterested in his flabby self when they made the cut.

I'm happy Wellwood has found a new home, and he is back to his productive ways. He is a wizard with the puck, and he has a beautiful knack for finding the right spots on the ice. I don't personally believe that he will go on to find career success like many of the other waiver-wire players the Leafs have lost. Poor work ethic, the unwillingness to sacrifice his body and battle, these things don't last too long in the NHL regardless of talent. Alexandre Daigle was still putting up 50 or so points a season before he was shut out of the league.

Wellwood's resurgence has been a boon for the Canucks. But the expectation that if we had just kept Kyle on the roster he would have bounced back this strong simply isn't rooted in the real world. There was no way for this team to re-create the circumstances that lead to Wellwood's need to prove himself, they and every other team in the league know this.

Maple Leafs: Logjam Edition

2008-11-09T22:38:00.000-08:00

So we're a fifth of the way through our "rebuilding" season, and we're still rotating defensemen. The injury to Van Ryn will (sadly) free up a roster slot for the immediate future. Wilson's clearly not putting guys in for development purposes, so I guess he's putting in the guy he thinks will help us win. None of the defensemen we've currently scratched have managed to blow us away, as if they had they probably wouldn't be scratched anymore, so I wanted to look at how the Leafs have fared with each of them in the lineup:

(note Ian White isn't on the list as we've never dressed him as a defenseman this season, plus look up Chara's goal last Thursday for an example as to why forward suits him better anyway)

(for the record, I know this isn't actually a great indicator of performance, especially given small sample size, and the team record has more to do with the rest of the guys than it does an individual defenseman)

Carlo Colaiacovo

Team Record: 2-3-1
Stats: 0-0-0, -2, 6 PIM, 5 shots, 4 missed shots, 8 hits, 7 blocked shots.

Jonas Frogren

Team Record: 2-2-1
Stats: 0-1-1, -4, 6PIM, 3 shots, 1 missed shot, 25 hits, 14 blocked shots.

Anton Stralman

Team Record: 3-2-4
Stats: 1-1-2, +2, 2 PIM, 1 GWG, 15 shots, 3 missed shots, 6.7 Sh%, 8 hits, 8 blocked shots.

Some things worth noting:

Despite Frogren being our "shutdown" Swede and Stralman being our "soft" Swede, they've traded spots in terms of +/-, Frogren having the worst rating of the three. Frogren however has a monstrous hit count, second only to Luke Schenn on the team (despite the fact that he's only played 5 games!).

Frogren and Cola are averaging about a penalty minute a game, whereas Stralman has an astonishing one penalty in 9 games played.

Cola needs to find a way onto the scoresheet if he wants to stick around. We're all behind you dude, but you have less shots registered than games played, and almost as many missed as taken. Stralman has played 50% more, but he has triple the shots.

Stralman is the only player batting a game record of over .500, but as a technicality rather than a selling point (three of those OT losses are shootouts btw). Still, the Leafs have points in 7 of the 9 games he's played.

Stralman has the only goal of the group and it counted for something too, sealing a comeback against the Bruins. The 6.7 shooting percentage is down significantly from last year, for a player known for his accuracy he needs to make his shots count for more.

Carlo has the lowest shot block totals, one below Stralman, but has also played 3 fewer games than Stralman. Frogren, once again, puts them to shame.

It doesn't show it up there, but they're all tied with 2 giveaways, and have almost tied for two takeaways (Frogren adding one and Carlo losing one). They also all have almost the same time on ice per game, shifts per game, and shift length per game.

Conclusion:

Play the Swedes. Stralman and Carlo are close, but Stralman has produced, is a plus player, doesn't take bad penalties, and the team so far has done well with his presence. Frogren's a completely different animal altogether, but his defensive stats speak for themselves. In this group, Carlo's the odd man out, not enough offense to warrant an offensive role, not enough defense to play shutdown.

Also, can we please sit Kabby for a game? He hasn't looked bad, just... disinterested in his own zone.

It's time to man up, Kosto

2008-11-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here's Tom (douchebag, asshole, retard) Kostopoulos:

"I was just trying to get in on the forecheck and get the puck," he said. "I did not anticipate him turning. I hope he is all right. I know in my head I was not trying to hurt him."

Which sounds perfectly reasonable, until, you know, we watch the video (excuse the ridiculous music) and see that he had Van Ryn's numbers the whole time. And, once you'd planted your forearm across "26, Van Ryn" was it anticipation or forechecking when you drove his face into the boards? Do NHL players not know these things are recorded?

And here's Ron Wilson:

“I don’t understand those kinds of hits,” Wilson said. “I’ve seen our Ryan Hollweg do it.

"We have to find a way to get these hits from behind and head shots out of the game. You can’t say a player can’t turn. It’s his responsibility to go back and get the puck and it’s the guy who makes the hit to have the responsibility to make sure the [opponent] isn’t vulnerable.”

See Tom, we like to call that little thing "class". Wilson doesn't mince words, nor does he fly off the handle. He recognizes that this isn't the only incident of this sort of thing occurring and admits that his own players are often in the wrong. But he makes his point loud and clear.

It's Van Ryn's job to get that puck off the boards, if he shies up or braces for impact the Canadiens get possession for no reason. He's making the only play that makes sense from his position on the ice, and the forechecker has to know that, and respect it.

I'm not advocating we take hitting out of the game, but there are ways of forechecking that don't involve ramming full speed into somebody. I was watching the Sharks/Yotes game tonight and Mike Grier did exactly what I'm talking about, skated in hard but let up and just pinned his man when his back was turned.

Players like Hollweg, Downie, and I guess now you Tom, are often apologized for in that they are already "borderline NHLers" who have to play as hard as they can just to stay up in the game. That kind of thinking is ridiculous, if either Hollweg or Downie had the restraint and control to make the smart play instead of running a man they might never need fear losing their jobs. Reckless players are simply that, reckless, and that kind of contact in a professional game is pointless.

Now Tom, you have a reputation for being a pretty clean guy, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one. There's a lot of stuff happening very fast, mistakes happen, and this is a contact sport, no way around it. I don't believe you ever actually intended to hurt Mike.

But man up, dude. Take responsibility for the consequences of your actions, like an adult. Don't blame the guy you just put into the hospital. Van Ryn likely could have saved himself from the worst of that impact, but he was trying to make a play. It was your forearm across his back that shoved his face into the glass, and for what? You might play clean most nights, but unfortunately you'll never have class like our good man Ron.

Some questions for Ron

2008-11-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

So we blew a lead, blew a game that should have been ours, Cujo was mediocre and the Curse of Kerry Fraser lives on. I don't particularly blame Cujo, Kerry, or most of the Leafs, but I would like same answers from our coach.

1. Why did Cujo start the third?

The 'Canes' first goal was a fluke, they knew it, we knew it, and we responded strongly with two more. The second was a five on three, Cujo made some initial saves that were great, except poor technique kicked the rebound straight onto Whitney's stick. Fine. We lost the scrums in front of the net for the third, but that fourth goal by Ruutu should never happen. That's an AHL-class goal, and Cujo watches the puck all the way above his shoulder.

Despite the fact that he wasn't the only reason we were down in that game, he needed to go. You can't let in a softie like that after the team has already given up the lead with marginal goals. The goalie needs to calm down the guys in front of him, Joseph had been flying around his crease all game and sending out rebounds. By the time the fifth goal went in it was obvious the boys had lost their confidence in the Cat, and they needed Toskala in to get them focused on their game. Would we have won with Toskala in for the last 20? I'm not so sure, I don't pin this loss solely on goaltending, but it would have been the right move for the rest of the players.

2. Why put the Stajan line on after the five-on-three was over in the second period?

Stajan had been killing penalties with the rest of the PK corps, Antro and Poni had been sitting cold. I know that the kind of offensive zone control that line provides is what the Leafs needed, but Antro isn't the strongest skater on the team and Stajan was pretty obviously gassed. Plus, didn't Stajan take a tired-looking tripping call to start off the penalty parade of the second?

Why not the Grabovski line, the strongest skating line on the team and the one that had spent almost no time killing penalties? The one that offensively dominated earlier in the period? The guys that weren't on the ice for a goal against all game?

3. Why break up the Man-Grabs-Lemon line in the third?

Seriously.

4. Why Carlo?

I know he's been pushing for ice time, and I also know that a back-to-back is a decent time to rotate in two players who are fresh to add some life to our team. But with Pitkanen and Kaberle out, the only person on that 'Canes team with a point shot is Joe Corvo. Meaning a lot of their offense comes from the front and down low. Meaning Frogren would have been a much better choice.

Final Thoughts

I think we all know where we'll be seeing Carlo in the near future. And it won't be on the ice in blue and white. It's a shame, because like all suffering Leafs fans I like Carlo, I honestly believed that if he had been healthy the past two years we would have made the playoffs, as opposed to suffering through the Woz era. Then he showed us all exactly why we didn't make the playoffs with him in the roster.

Shitty penalty (and believe me, after seeing enough replays I know exactly why that call was made, as ticky as it looked it was probably the most legitimate call on us that period), argues it, then sits out the third after taking a puck to the leg, shortening our bench that already had an injured Finger on it. Isn't this the kind of stuff that we thought was gone in the new era of the Leafs? Isn't the fact that this crap was missing the reason that these games were fun to watch, win or lose?

White filled in for Hollweg and did great, as I think we knew he would. But please, I know we had injuries, no more White on defense. He completely disappeared when put there and we could have used his checking down low.

Mayers has been brutal, too many penalties, not enough good. Wishing we had that third rounder back.

Poor Schenn. Rough birthday for the kid.

I think we saw this one coming...

2008-10-30T22:05:00.001-07:00

Sooner or later, somebody in the TSM had to break down completely. Who might have guessed it was the one who was starting to sound like his discussions with "fans" were going on largely in his head?

Now, I haven't read Howard Berger's blog in quite some time, it became pretty clear that he'd lost his way months ago. The vitriol and hostility in the above article isn't actually new, it's just most of Howard's previous articles without the sugar-coating and self-contradiction contained singularly within each. Before Berger's disdain and appreciation of his audience (mostly disdain) was held secure within a shell of something pretending to be news. Like a Kinder Surprise, sometimes we got a shiny moving train, most of the time we got puzzle pieces that formed a picture of a happy bear taking a dump on Southern Ontario.

Now, some news that's recently come to light is Forbes' newest rankings of NHL teams, with the Leafs once again topping out the league in net worth. Despite a third losing season, and promises by management that times were going to get worse instead of better in the foreseeable future, the teams revenues still managed to grow by about 9% over the previous year. That's a fairly incredible statistic, and one that plays a pretty big part in this incident, obviously in that it set off this little tantrum, but also in a more humbling manner. This sort of information coming to light is why I can sympathize with what's happened to Mr. Berger.

If the Leafs are this lucrative then anything relating to them is equally so. The competition among media outlets in this city must be something to behold. I only post about once a week in this blog, partially because I have little to say, but mostly because there's already so many great sources covering pretty much the same subjects, a small few of which can be seen at the right of this screen.

Howard faced the challenge of coming up with content for a much larger audience to digest much faster than that, with much greater competition. Somewhere along the lines he discovered that the Leafs audience would listen to just about anything and respond generally the same way. A way which is, to say the least, not generally very nice or intelligent.

It's a matter of sample size, and the wonders of the internet leave some few of the many comments that bloggers and online journalists recieve open for public viewing. The results are maybe a little disparaging of the education levels in this country. While we often scoff at his portrayal of the bumbling, parroting sheep that are Leafs nation, I can vouch for the fact that these people do actually exist, and probably kept up a pretty good correspondance with the guy.

Steve has gone as far as calling Berger narcissistic which, while likely true, I find to be a little misrepresentative. After all, blogging is at least in some small part narcissistic, as is journalism, as is being a sports fan. Turn that list onto us fans in the Barilkosphere and I'm not sure we'd fare much better.

The hardest part of journalism is keeping yourself professional and composed in front of the masses. Some manage the attention with skill and aplomb, and I have the utmost respect for those people. Still, as we've all seen in various situations, some people given a microphone and an audience can often develop a God/martyr complex. Some people just simply aren't cut out for this sort of thing.

Let's not get away from the point here, this sort of outburst from someone holding a press card with one of the main sports media outlets in Toronto is completely unacceptable. The fact that he (and many others) have gotten away with content similar to this in the past is apalling, especially considering the lack of true content that Leafs fans recieve from these various outlets.

But don't be too mad at Howard. He's come to a pretty big revelation for himself, and the way that we will view future media coverage in this city (countdown to a Cathal Kelly meltdown? Anyone? How about Dave Shoalts?). But Howard, don't take a vacation. Don't carry on. Just move on. There's no shame in not being able to handle the spotlight, but once you've become the king with no clothes you need to realize when your time is up.

I'm not sure if after posting what essentially amounts to hate speech in a company website Howard will still actually have a job in the coming days. If he still does it will just prove to be symptomatic of a media with a complete lack of respect for the majority of Leafs fans. If he still does I will only feel sorrier for the man. The irony that he mentions ivory towers in his first sentence shouldn't be lost.

So what's going on in my back end?

2008-10-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

is Ian White done here, or biding his time?

So with Schenn looking likely to stay, it looks like we're going to have to start thinking seriously about our defense... again. For what seems like the 18th time.

Sitting out have been (former) fan favourites Ian White and Carlo Colaiacovo, with Frogren sitting out last game in favour of the widely anticipated debut of Jeff Finger*. Personally I think Frogren wanders way too far out on his shifts and occasionally leaves his partner out to dry in the defensive zone, but Wilson seems high on the guy and the need for a truly physical defenseman is there.

The prevailing logic is this; if White and Cola are sitting, they must be getting traded for one of two reasons:

1) We have no use for them as a club and need them gone.

2) We owe it to them as perfectly (sorta) respectable NHL roster players to find them time to play elsewhere.

I take issue with that reasoning, Cola and White both present risky moves for any prospective takers at the trade market. Carlo, for his obvious health concerns, and White for reasons I've gone into already (he sucks). Not only that, but by not playing them at all we're not giving them a chance to reassert themselves as viable NHLers while telling other clubs that nobody in their right mind would dress them.

So why would anybody actually give up assets to take these two guys off our hands? Is it more likely that we're trying to move somebody currently locked into a roster spot?

With Frogren recently sitting and Finger being one of Cliff's new signings, the potential goats seem to be:

Kaberle
Kubina
Van Ryn
Stralman

As I wouldn't even dare to suggest that Schenn could be on the trading block.

Now that's an interesting list. I've already gone into detail about Kaberle and his potential misgivings of being with an alien group of guys on what will likely be a losing outfit for the twilight of his career. Fletcher already had a chance to trade Kubina this summer and didn't, a move I found distressing, so it's unlikely Kubina moves. Van Ryn has acquitted himself pretty well, and is probably our 2nd or 3rd best dman at this point.

Lastly there's Stralman (who has an awesome picture on Sportsnet). I for one can't believe we haven't already sent him down, he's made some good plays, some (more) bad, and is still learning. Sending him down would immediately alleviate some of our roster troubles while Cliff works something out, while giving him 20+ minutes in the Marl. The fact that he's still on the roster is a bit baffling, and maybe a bit troubling.

Of course, trading a 22 year old with loads of upside also doesn't really fit Cliff's modus operandi for this season, so I'm assuming our golden Swede is also safe.

Leaving Kabby and Van Ryn, both of whom have been great and both of whom have big but reasonable cap hits.

We can't expect teams to take our unwanted guys just because they're struggling, a cap market prohibits that kind of wanton asset dealing. But we could gather some interest with our better guys.

Something to keep an eye on, regardless. Any bets on what our defensive pairings would look like with these guys gone?

Kubina-Schenn
Finger-Stralman
Frogren-Colaiacovo

Huh, that leaves White still out. Guess we might be trading the poor crappy bastard anyway.

* I expect the anticipation level among Leafs fans and haters alike was quite muted for Finger's debut. The joke got tired months ago, which I guess we all knew would happen. Until Finger scores an own-goal before his first real one, that is.

Something to get off my chest...

2008-10-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Now, in the aftermath of the baseless speculation that was the possibility of Toronto being home to a second hockey franchise, opinions were bandied about regarding why Toronto didn't deserve a second team. Because they already have a second pro team, the Marlies, whose attendance has been abysmal lately (hovering under 1500) after a promising start in Toronto.

Now, let's get this straight. 1500 fans in an arena that seats 7500, especially in the playoffs, is a complete travesty. There's no way to really gauge why interest and attendance is so low, but in my mind the concept of "arrogance" on the part of Toronto fans isn't quite accurate, both MLS and the NLL aren't exactly "world class" organizations (though maybe the most professional forms of their sport existing in North America) yet both sell out frequently in the city. I don't mean to belittle those teams, I watch TFC any chance I get, but I can tell you in terms of comparable play, the AHL is about as close to NHL hockey as MLS is to the Premier League.

The real reasons why nobody in the city goes to Marlies games?

Nobody knows who they are

Sad, I know, but true. We're talking about a team fresh from St. John's, Newfoundland that relocated in 2004. They play in Ricoh Coliseum, a venue known better for Fallout Boy concerts. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to explain to somebody what the AHL is in Toronto.

Ignorance shouldn't be confused with arrogance.When TFC launched it was accompanied with billboards, streetcar wraparounds, banners, and television commercials. The Maple Leafs have started pushing their new "Spirit is Everything" campaign in the same fashion in order to keep interest while the team undergoes it's struggles.

The Marlies have a banner on the side of Ricoh Coliseum, in an area where to see it you need to be driving away from it to get into the city. A search for "Toronto Marlies Ad/Poster" will give you this:

A garbage can. In front of Ricoh, no less. Who sees that unless they're already at the game? What sport is that for anyway? All I can see is Duke the Dog being oddly creepy.

Now, don't get me wrong here, the Marlies get exposure somewhere. I've seen loads of announcements and ads for the Marlies. Every time I'm in the Air Canada Centre to watch a game. What kind of logic is that? One, everyone there can afford to go to a Leaf game. Two, the NHL and AHL schedules are largely concurrent, meaning that to see the Marlies the people who are currently paying outrageously large sums to see the Leafs would have to miss games in order to watch a worse team.

Marlies games are televised, to an extent, on LeafsTV. Whenever they play a home game when the Leafs aren't also on TV. That's not a good way to reach a new audience either. Marlies highlights and postgames are used as filler in newspapers and on news broadcasts occasionally.

The Future of the Leafs?

Now, die-hard fans of the Leafs would love to see exciting talent. They want to be able to point at a kid and say "He'll be on the team next year" The Marlies don't offer that. This is a list on the Marlies website about their graduates. Name somebody that resonates with current fans. Peter Zezel?

Some good young kids on the Leafs have played games there, Carlo Colaiacovo, Jiri Tlusty, and Anton Stralman. Neither of them has played more than half a season on the current incarnation of the Marlies. Probably the most relevant and recent grad who played significant minutes on the minor team was Ian White (in St. Johns), currently a healthy scratch for 5 games.

It's not the Marlies fault that the Leafs have lacked draft picks and organizational depth. It's just too bad that Kris Newbury, Ben Ondrus, and Staffan Kronwall just aren't very big draws. Williams and Earl don't project to be scoring stars in the pros. There's Pogge, but he hasn't held a starting role there until this season, and to be honest goalies are noticed most when they mess up.

Success

People pay to see winning teams. Before last year's trip to the conference finals, the Marlies had one playoff round, a 5 game loss to Grand Rapids. With the Leafs suddenly struggling, a Calder Cup from the Marl would likely help sales greatly. Mark Bell may just tear things up down at that level, which would make things interesting. But this team is too new and faced too much competition from a pro team making breathtaking almost-runs to a playoff bearth to garner a lot of hype, especially with no media exposure.

The onus here is on MLSE to push the Marlies as a viable entertainment option in the city, not an alternative but another outlet for the passion and patriotism of the masses. So far they've dropped the ball, and a perfectly decent team is middling in obscurity in the city.

Wilson Speaks: Game 2

2008-10-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

Full interview found here:

"I think, had we scored on one of those couple of great chances we had... it's important for us to feel good about themselves in the first half of the game..."

Absolutely agreed, but that's a pretty weak point to call up against. He does say that we played poorly defensively to allow two early goals, and then took too many minors and got killed by their power play.

Now, "Mad" (Idiot, Jackass, Loudmouth) Mike Milbury pointed out on CBC that things turned "ugly" with some troglodyte reporter asking this question:

"Do you think it's just a matter of some of your defensemen getting used to the speed of the NHL?"

By which he means Frogren and Schenn, giving the coach an easy outlet for excuse making. Of course this is a ridiculous question, both players played over 20 minutes and while they didn't play the greatest game in the world neither could or should have the game result pinned on them. But hey, any excuse to gang up on a young rookie, right Toronto media?

I'm glad Wilson gave that guy a hard time, I'm tired of the media here asking loaded questions in an effort to hear what they want to hear in order to easier facilitate them writing the same damn article they always write. I'm also sick of these people asking questions that seem like they were watching a different game than the rest of us.

In regards to penalty killing:

"... they picked us apart just like we'd diagrammed on the board, so obviously we need a lot more attention to detail or I have to decide that other guys kill penalties"

Please. Mitchell and Kubina combined to allow a goal, and it's pretty obvious that some of our guys aren't living up to their billing in that position.

"It's probably an adjustment for some people to step up and have to play like veterans, when they've maybe been able to go out there and not be counted upon..."

Stajan, Poni, Van Ryn, I'm looking at you. Blake gets a pass because I never really expected him to step into a leadership role.

Also, Hollweg is going to be in the lineup most assuredly, and he'll "add some physicality" which I guess means he'll board a lot of people and we'll hope that our lazy slackers will start boarding people too. I wonder who gets left out, my money's on Mitchell though after that brutal high stick.

Also, Stralman will be in the lineup on Monday, yes Ron?

Leafs Lose; Cup Hopes in Doubt, Ontario Shamed

2008-10-11T23:29:00.001-07:00

In all seriousness, it was a bad game and a lost cause, but with a few bounces the score could have been much more respectable. 3 posts, a blown chance by Blake early on, and if we'd been able to corral the puck on the numerous times Halak was swimming around in his crease we might have salvaged a bit of our pride.

But that kind of thinking is a part of the old club, it's not about what could have happened but rather what we did or didn't do that game, and boy did things look depressing on that front. We were running in our end when we should have been standing calm, we were standing around when we should have been pressing. The forecheck wasn't established properly and we failed to take the physical game to a Habs team minus Georges Laraque. The Leafs looked like the team that had just played a shootout game the night before, the Habs team looked like the young team hungry for the puck.

But that's how the Leafs are going to be this season, we're counting on inexperience in both our top six and our back end to grow on the job. When it works it'll be great, when things don't get going we can unravel just like that.

This team is often going to have just one chance to steal their wins, whether it be a scoring chance or a blocked shot. As the season progresses we'll be able to see if anyone on the current roster can be counted on, and if the team can reign their play in after that.

Leadership on this team is going to be important, in an interview with CBC it was mentioned that after the win in Detroit, while the team was celebrating, Hagman was back on the stationary bike. The younger core is going to need to learn the lesson in that, it's not about pats on the back or kicking socks, it's about working hard every second.

Great to have the win and all...

2008-10-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

Why the hell was Stralman benched?

Actually, that's a bad question. He had a mediocre camp on a team with enough defensemen to fill out most of a forward corps. Wilson wanted the Leafs to see a winning team celebrate victory, to instill hunger and drive into his guys to carry into the future. Stralman being there was important.

The better question is, why wasn't he sent down to the Marlies afterwards to play 25+ minutes and prevent them losing to Binghampton last night?

He needs work, it's true, but I'd honestly rather see him traded to Montreal than have him twiddling his thumbs in various stadiums. Stralman doesn't have to clear waivers, if he's not going to be playing for the Leafs then he needs to be playing somewhere.

If Schenn is being sent down after 9 games that still doesn't leave an opening for Anton, as Finger should be returning from IR soon. I'm assuming that since Stralman hasn't been sent down that the coaching staff isn't anticipating him missing many games. So who sits? Van Ryn? Colaiacovo? Do we alternate Swedes?

Or is a deal imminent in the next few days?

A little late on the Ron Wilson thing

2008-09-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

"See this? This is my ticket outta this town."

I was at work and feel the need to drop my two pennies in. Two pennies that happen to have maple leaves on them.

I find it really funny that the same sources that put up gloomy reviews of the team's roster depth as basement dwellers, and the same ones that report that MLSE ownership has declined to budget time for playoff games, are now somehow calling out Wilson over a backhanded comment at the usual pests after a tough loss.

It's not like he wasn't saying anything the players didn't already know.

***

Who believes that they're making a cup this year when the organization has flat out said all summer that they are rebuilding? Who believes that Mikhail Grabovski is a first line center? Or that Jamal Mayers is the guy to put their team over the top? It's obvious by the moves made this summer to all that players involved that a contender is not being assembled overnight here.

Even better, which players still thought their management was hoping for a Cinderella run for the finals when there's no money set aside to so much as run the lights in the ACC should it happen? Am I to believe that Matt Stajan can't wait to play the Pens on pitch dark concrete this April?

There's a difference between knowing it and saying it, it's true. But Paul Maurice saying we would make the playoffs didn't get us a berth. Believe it or not, our guys probably won't know they're out of the hunt in their hearts until January at the earliest.

I don't believe Ron said what he did to get our guys to prove him wrong, because I honestly don't think that the organization thinks making the postseason this year would be in our best interests for continued success. I think he firmly believes that we're nowhere near a cup, and nothing short of a miracle will turn this rag-tag group of losers into a ballroom dancer with glass slippers.

What he's trying to do is manage expectations, of both the rampant idiotic media that will ask players about their quest for a cup 10 games into the season (mark my words) and the players themselves. We're talking about a club that seriously lacks the focus needed to so much as close out single games (or single periods), the thought of our current group as it stands mentally trying to close out a 7 game series must make Wilson shudder. The cup is the ultimate goal of any player, but our guys need blinders on so they can focus on how to win from game to game. That's the hardest part of playing through a losing season, and it's something our guys will need to get used to sooner rather than later. If they can learn to compete and not take any second for granted in a game then hopefully once we make the postseason we can go somewhere.

Well played, Yahoo! commenter...

2008-09-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

So Wyshynski over at Puck Daddy wrote this interesting piece on Wilson's latest poorly thought out one liner to the associated dinks that make up our media coverage. Buried in the comments was this guy, Mr. jibblescribbits:

"I was okay with his honesty, but when he added "These guys couldn't score on a 2 loony whore" I thought he really crossed a line."

Of course Wysh tried to keep things serious in keeping with the tone of his article, stating how anything could happen, goaltenders and hot streaks etc, and all the other bull that we tell ourselves in order to sleep most nights. Of course, even considering the Leafs as a playoff team is wishful thinking on the levels of the earthquake/snowstorm we all prayed for during our standardized math tests in middle school. Not to be left out of the discussion, jibblescribbits replied:

"I respectfully disagree. Ron Wilson is the perfect man to say this. He knows all about not winning the Stanley Cup from his time with San Jose."

Ouch man, as a Leafs fan first and a Sharks fan second, that hurts. What did I ever do to you?

Do the Leafs include this stuff in their media guides?

2008-09-29T01:21:00.000-07:00

As Leafs fans, we're used to reading the same sort of repetitive dribble from the Canadian Sports Media. Like it or not, Torontonians love to read about Toronto, the rest of Canada likes to read bad things about Toronto, so naturally combining the two in an area of journalism generally devoid of standards or factual basis seems like a great idea.

The 1967's, the concept of the Leafs fans as the root cause of the ills of the team, the idea that an organization hellbent on profit would somehow be content to miss out on an insanely lucrative post-season, the concept that the very readership is deaf dumb and blind, the hypocrisy from day to day, and the false assertion of the franchise as perennial losers are just a few of the cliches bandied about by most major organizations in Canada. Then re-hashed and remouthed by the mouth breathers that believe them while lacking basic research skills.

I like reports on the Leafs by American institutions, whether it's simply watching a game on a yankee feed, a news article, or a blog post. It makes for a refreshing change of pace, while clearly not unbiased it's a different take over the pump-you-up over the top coverage by TSN and CBC or the I-hate-you-and-my-job hackery published by more unsavory elements.

PPP over at his great Leafs blog gave props to Puck Daddy yesterday on a surprisingly fair assessment of the upcoming season, albeit in his usual ascerbic style. I was then informed by Puck Daddy's readers that he needs to work on his personal hygiene.

I don't usually read Ross McKeon over at Yahoo! Sports, he usually makes strong assertions and predictions without any sort of basis and I'd never listen to him about my fantasy team. It's basically "X matches up against Y, X will prevail" and "N will fare poorly this season", as a fan I don't count on the merits of win/loss predictors. Most people, including Ross, were expecting the Habs to finish last season where the Leafs are expected to finish this year.

But he did a Leafs preview and some things caught my eye:

"this season general manager Cliff Fletcher and new coach Ron Wilson have suggested the team might have to take two steps back to take one forward.

That may not appease the passionate fans that make up the self-proclaimed center of the hockey universe, but there is no other way to take shortcuts. The Leafs have to strip it back, go young, be patient and hope to improve."

Wait a second here, something seems familiar about that sentence. I've already discussed this, but the passionate fans are not the ones upset that nobody's declaring us as cup favourites, and revoking their die-hard cards. The passionate ones are the ones who are supporting this team even though every indication points to it being a stinker. The ones jumping ship because the team is finally rebuilding after all the false hope? Losers.

Also, the "self proclaimed" center of the hockey universe? Funny, the last time I saw a Leaf fan say that they were being sarcastic. In fact, the only time I ever really see that phrase is with "self proclaimed" in front of it, which makes me wonder who's really doing the proclaiming here. Americans seem to love going along with the "Toronto = hockey" thing, Toronto's the biggest city in the biggest hockey country in the world, with both the headquarters of the NHL and the Hall of Fame. But come on now, it's not like we're waging war on Detroit for the ridiculous title of "Hockeytown" with titanium sticks and depleted uranium pucks.

The thing is, McKeon puts together a perfectly decent and detailed article, stressing the need for patience, youth, and drafting into the future. He doesn't bash the signing of Finger, he acknowledges the difficulty a rebuilding team has in luring top free agents. He says what everyone needs to say to themselves, Leaf fan or no, that it's probably best to cut ties with Sundin. Finally he stresses that defense and hard work are what's going to make this team down the stretch.

So why the need to toss off one liners about the fans? Even better, if Toronto is the center of hockey then shouldn't we know when a team needs to come down? Where is this stuff coming from?

Ross and Yahoo! have no axe to grind with the Leafs, so I can assume that no real malice is being added here, he wrote that because he believes it to be true. Or... he believes that we believe it to be true. Or something.

So is our media so pervasive that it's causing international ripples, that soon people in Argentina will believe that Torontonians all hate to see a listless organization given direction at the expense of false promises? That there's some sort of overarching belief in Toronto's superiority and destiny as a hockey city? Or, even worse, is the vocal base of Leaf haters who believe in the Coxs and Bergers of the world spreading their message to people who shouldn't even care?

We're sports fans, we want our team to do well, and we get a little down when they don't. There happen to be a lot of us in one place for the relatively small game of hockey, but please stop trying to make our fanbase out to be something different because of that.

Preseason thoughts and ramblings

2008-09-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

Own Goals

Get ready for a lot more of these as the preseason progresses into the season. Wilson's stressing the guys getting into lanes like never before, it will be a while before they get comfortable with it and generally poor deflections come with the territory of heavy shot blocking. In the end the results will be worth it, but in the meantime we're going to be putting our heads in our hands quite a bit.

Marlies

John Mitchell's played his way into a #1a call-up role in my opinion, and good for him as he had a great playoff with the Marlies. I don't think he's good enough to crack the roster full time as we have a glut of forwards, but if he doesn't earn a call at some point this season I'll eat my hat.

Earl looks like he's trying to do too much with the puck out there, his speed and shot look great but generally when he's on the ice he's a turnover machine. It's a shame, hopefully he'll put together a healthy season in the AHL and return with a cooler head.

Williams... still sucks. It's a shame, but his game's got too many holes right now. Like Earl, hopefully he'll play a full season and pull it together.

Pogge looks good, but he's not ready yet. I really doubt we'll be moving Toskala this year, Pogge needs to play a lot of games and calm down in his crease.

Luke Schenn

Is an ass-kicker, he looks fairly comfortable on the ice and turned out to be a scoring sensay-schenn! *collective groaning* He needs time to adjust to the speed of the game, he's been burned taking too long to make decisions with the puck several times so far and he's had difficulty on the PK. Bright future for the kid, I have to agree with Cliff's decision to get us a steady blueliner to start off our new core.

Scoring

Grabovsky needs to realise that just because he can stickhandle well doesn't mean he should in most situations. The Antro-Grabs-Kulemin line shows promise, Kulemin and Grabs both need to learn to find open ice better. Kulemin's still skirting the line between 3rd line grinder and 2nd line scorer, hell of a shot but his overall play in the zone needs work. Hagman looked like he was trying to force scoring chances and shots last game, trying to live up to his 27 goal billing perhaps? (maybe we have a new Jason Blake?) Dominic Moore is an ass-kicker, I was hoping Mayers would basically be a Moore clone but it's obvious his hands are a little bit stiffer. If we can play a good trap then we've got the scoring to win a few games, but all the facets of the team probably won't come together until January at the earliest.

Ian White: Offensive(ly bad) defenseman

I've had long arguments with mf37 about this guy lately, and his goal last night doesn't make me think any better of him.

To sum up, he was third most in shots on our team last year and played the fourth most minutes among defensemen on the Leafs, and is often referred to as an "offensive defenseman". However, he's averaged a 3.3 shooting percentage on the team while taking roughly 120 shots per full season. Those are Hal Gill like numbers in terms of shots. White also only had half or less of the assists of the other shooting leaders on D, showing me that his shots are also not directly leading to scoring opportunities, considering his trouble putting the puck in the net himself. He missed 55 shots, almost a full third of his total, just two misses less than Kubina (who took 20 more shots total). Offensive? Really? His contribution to our offense isn't exactly irreplaceable.

He's also a mediocre skater, anyone who says he skates well has been paid by him. Check out Crosby's breakaway goal, both he and Kubina get toasted but it's Kubina who actually gets a few steps in and tries to make a play on Crosby. How the hell is Pavel Kubina a better skater than White?

He plays physically in our zone but he's really too small to deal with NHL size power forwards, he looks like a child out there some nights, and his physical play rarely leads to a change in possession.

White makes a decent pass, but the other facets of his game lack considerably. He brings it every night, and rarely gets injured, which is another plus. Personally I don't believe we can up his value enough to get a return for him in a trade, on a supposedly low-scoring team he's never going to put enough points up, and defensively he's played like a 6th or 7th guy for years now. If anything, the reason we should be keeping White is to fill a hole once we pump and dump someone else.

In defense of my boy Anton

2008-09-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

pretty impressive photo considering that shot barely topped 40mph

Alright, so he didn't look too great against the Pens, the kick-in goal is one of those things that just happens, and he blew a tire on his bum knee.

The shortie is what got him the most raspberries, and it was pretty bad, but something in Ron Wilson's post game interview caught my ear:

"Both of our defensemen fell down on that play, which probably won't happen again all year"

Hold up on that thinking Ron, this is the Maple Leafs we're talking about. But both our defensemen?

Now, after that goal my first thought was "Where's Kabby on that play?" but I held my tongue. However, check out the game in 6 on mapleleafs.com and before the camera zooms in on Malkin you'll see Kaberle just starting to get up on one knee. God damn the ice in Pittsburgh must be bad, but that little fact turns that play from incompetence to slapstick in short order.

Damien Cox knows his stuff

2008-09-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

Cox recently put together one of his misery-pieces (isn't it great to know the hockey season is starting again?) centering on the Leafs, our man Vesa Toskala, and the axe collection he's been grinding all summer at home.

He makes some decent points, which can be argued to varying levels of success (McKichan had say in the Raycroft trade and obviously failed with Rayzor, and I hate to say it Leafs fans but Pogge not playing in the playoffs for the Marl was possibly to the benefit of the rest of the team).

He comes off as fairly factual and reasonable, which is of course why he has to take a parting shot that makes no sense and showcases his flair for spouting indecipherable gibberish.

"When Leaf camp opens, it will be with a team expecting to do worse featuring a goaltender expected to do even better.

Can't see how both can happen."

Oh really, Damien? Because I have two functioning eyes, and it only took me two minutes and a dozen or so mouseclicks for them to see goaltending numbers for the teams that finished worse in the standings than the Leafs last year.

Among starters:

Tampa Bay
Johan Holmqvist GAA: 3.01 Sv%: .890

Los Angeles
Jason Labarbera GAA: 3.00 Sv%: .910

Atlanta
Kari Lehtonen GAA: 2.90 Sv%: .916

St. Louis
Manny Legace GAA: 2.41 Sv%: .911

New York Islanders
Rick DiPietro GAA: 2.82 Sv%: .902

Columbus
Pascal Leclaire GAA: 2.25 Sv%: .919

Toronto
Vesa Toskala GAA: 2.74 Sv%: .904

So we can see that of the six teams who placed below the Leafs in the standings last year, four had starters with higher save percentages than Toskala, and two of those four also had a lower GAA.

Which is why it's simply impossible for Toskala's numbers to improve if the Leafs drop in the standings.

(1967)

I hate myself for this...

2008-09-16T02:52:00.001-07:00

But I read an article on that site that caught my interest. Some may remember that I do not frequent said site as a matter of course, I just... stumbled upon it while... on HFboards looking for the breakdown of the Leafs rookie tournament. Good lord that was painful.

It looks like the final nail is being driven into the coffin of any respectability the so-called "Muskoka Five" could have claimed. Mats is reneging on his stated wish to be with a team through camp to the finals, McCabe eventually accepted a trade to a destination few (like me) thought likely after years of assertions of loyalty to Toronto, and now the worst one of all:

"I love to play for the Leafs, and I hope to play another year in Toronto. If not, I'll move on. But, I'm ready to play here and we'll see what happens." - Tomas Kaberle

Now Tomas, why do you just hope to play another year? You're just as in control of your destiny this season as you were last, when you blocked a trade that would have netted us a young top six forward and a top 20 draft pick. You were adamant about being a Leaf then, what's changed?

Oh. Your friends aren't around.

Could it be that the leadership core of the Leafs, the one adamant about winning a championship in Toronto, that believed in their group, was just a bunch of chums looking to have a good time on our dollars? There's evidence out there, and I hate that with every interview our former veteran core is proving the cliche thrown around by the TSM.

say it ain't so, Kabby

It's easier to see someone like McCabe move on once the atmosphere's gone, he was an import that had been shuffled around a few teams in the league before finding a partner in Kaberle along the blueline. Kaberle is a life-Leafer, a rare draft pick that's stuck with the club the whole of his career, who we might hope would retire a Leaf. To think that he torpedoed what would have been a key part of our rebuild not because he was loyal to the Leafs, but because he was loyal to his buddies, is sad in a lot of ways for a Leaf fan.

The worst part is that it's Kaberle who's the latest vet to waffle on his motivations for staying with the team now that it's not as easy in the dressing room. The one guy that none of us questioned for his performance or his contract, and the only one of the five to come through our system. You're a Maple Leaf Tomas, not a Sundin's Heroes Leaf, your jersey doesn't have a patch on it's shoulder that reads "Caber + Kabby + Tucks = BFF" on it (I hope). You've already made a stand that you want to remain a Leaf, so stick by it else you become another pariah of the dark period this club is going through.

Maybe we need to go over some terminology here...

2008-09-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

eat it, Massholes

In this well-quoted article by the Globe and Mail we see a picture that doesn't look too bright for the Leafs' future. Young kids are having a hard time getting into the game, fan numbers in polls are down, and they're looking to a franchise like Chicago for tips on how to get their populace excited again (having two break-out young draft picks the same year your team gets televised locally for the first time sounds like a strategy MLSE will have difficulty duplicating).

But let's go over a few things here:

"He revealed the club's market research indicated that in 2007-08, only 51 per cent of the people surveyed considered themselves die-hard Leafs fans, down from 68 per cent the previous year."

Now, I looked up the definition of "diehard" for an example, let's try two:

From Miriam Webster Online: strongly or fanatically determined or devoted <die–hard fans>

From Answers.com: Stubbornly resisting change or clinging to a seemingly hopeless or outdated cause.

Oh, look at that. I guess the 17% of the Leafs populace that removed themselves from the die-hard category after three years of non-success were right to do so, as they were full of shit to begin with.

Now, I know what MLSE is getting at here, fans are becoming disenfranchised by the woes of the team. But let's set things straight, the populace they're losing aren't the same people who shell out big bucks to buy scalped tickets to a Leafs/Habs showdown. They aren't the people with a Leaf license plate and flags on their car. They aren't the people who still own Leafs bedsheets and wear their Salming jersey while watching taped playoff games from '93 late at night. They're the "fans" that don't know shit about hockey, or the Leafs, who "cheer" for them occasionally in order to fit in at parties and cause a ruckus at bars.

So the crux of the matter is this; how much of does it actually matter if the Leafs are losing bandwagon fans? Should they do anything to remedy that?

For fans like most of the Barilkosphere, the consequences of losing touch with this customer base are twofold; firstly it means that fewer people will be snapping up those corporate platinum seats, secondly it means that there are going to be more people yelling "Leafs suck Ottawa/Montreal/Calgary rules!" out of cars as we walk past in our jerseys.

For MLSE the case is different. These are bandwagon fans, to get them back the Leafs need to be successful, so really any initiative the Leafs are trying to make to hook these people in during rebuild years is wasted effort. But the real meat of the article is the waning numbers of GTA area residents that are actually getting into the game at a young age, something that is very crucial that the organization address. Toronto is an expensive area to live in, and GTA hockey is expensive as all hell (a few grand if you want your kids in AA or AAA, not to mention the usual expenses of equipment and travel). If this is truly Canada's sport then not just MLSE needs to realise that hockey needs to be supported in order to give the (relative) poor or newly immigrated inroads into building up a community, as well as physical and personal skills. It's too easy to take for granted the fact that we live in Canada, or Toronto, and that hockey is ubiquitous.

Florida: 1 Maple Leafs: 3

2008-09-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Is just about how I tally this year's transactions between the two teams. The point Florida gained? The Bryan McCabe trade of course.

his last effort as a Maple Leaf was making Florida look good in
a trade, which would be fitting if it wasn't so damn depressing.

So what's the score breakdown? Well I'd put it at:

Kilger/ 3rd Round Pick: Advantage Leafs
Belak/ 5th Round Pick: Advantage Leafs
Bryan McCabe + 4th Round Pick/ Mike Van Ryn: Advantage Panthers
Bryan McCabe + 4th Round Pick/ Mike Van Ryn: Advantage Leafs

Why would I ever think getting rid of a draft pick is a good idea for a rebuilding team, and why does Florida even benefit from picking up our garbage? Well...

Florida Gains:
Bryan McCabe, a guy I believe still has some offense left in him and an NHL veteran used to eating up minutes. If Bouwmeester can cover up for him in his own end the way Kaberle used to then Florida's on it's way to a decent top pair and a capable offense that doesn't need to play Jokinen on the point on the power play any more.

McCabe also has some built up chemistry in the locker room with buddy and over all good guy Wade Belak, and potentially Chad Kilger should he ever return from the wilderness. Plus, though Martin may come to regret this, there's stability built into McCabe's deal. McCabe is likely loathe to want to move again, and has family in Florida to root him there as well as a friend. Martin was also probably the only GM in the NHL who even considered trading for the guy. Martin has a top-pairing defenseman for the next 3 years, regardless of how the Panthers fare in the standings.

They also got a fourth round pick in 2010 from the Leafs, which is pure gold.

Panthers Lose:
Van Ryn, a guy with potential to be a steady 40 point dman whose career has been set back by injury and circumstance. Really the Panthers aren't hurting for depth on the defensive end after the Jokinen trade, so losing Van Ryn and gaining McCabe is still likely a move up in skill level without the team regressing in other areas.

Leafs Gain:
Van Ryn, a potential 40 point dman who will probably play better defense with no wrists than McCabe ever did. With Van Ryn we get insurance heading out of camp if Cola is injured or if Frogren or Stralman don't progress to the NHL level like we might hope. Also Ian White sucks, and he better be our 7th or in the Marlies next season. If Van Ryn does well enough throughout the season then we have the depth to finally be a seller at the trade deadline, which will hopefully at least yield us back that 4th rounder.

Leafs Lose:
Bryan McCabe. And let me be the 4,000th to say, Thank the Lord. In McCabe we lose a 1st pairing power play defenseman on a team that already has one (Kubina) younger, cheaper, more physical, and on the upswing in terms of his point curve. Regardless of how we felt about Bryan's play, he was one-dimensional, redundant and old on a team that needs youth and an emphasis on defensive responsibility.

A 4th round draft selection in 2010. Unfortunately GMs knew the kind of situation the Leafs were in with McCabe and so weren't willing to simply take the guy off our hands. A fourth rounder is hopefully something we can recoup later on with a trade of one of our defensive depth players.

At the end of the day the Leafs were never going to add anybody significant to their roster for McCabe, he's old, coming off a very poor year in terms of production. Plus Toronto might as well have tarred him and feathered him with a big sign on his back that read "Honk if you love blowing games in overtime" for emphasis. Which, to most of us, is pretty awesome.

The advantage the Leafs gain is not by adding Van Ryn, but in what is left in McCabe's absence. The Leafs gain about 2mil in cap room next year, and more over the next 2 if Van Ryn leaves later on. 2-5 million might not seem large in today's NHL but it gives us room to hold onto our core guys once they hit contract years a little down the stretch. It also frees up 20 minutes a night on our blue line, to be distributed however way Ron Wilson sees fit, but ultimately frees up space over the next 3 years for guys like Stralman, Schenn, and Vorobiev should he ever fly over.

That 4th round pick we lost with McCabe gives us more time and space to sign and play the guys that were identified as people we want to keep within the organization, and so in my mind is worth the expense. Much more so than, say, a 5th for Ryan Hollweg to dance around in our locker room.

Also, DGB over on his great Leafs blog started up a pretty good discussion about McCabe's priorities and commitment to winning when the details of McCabe's decision came to light. Some great comments there, just adding my two cents: McCabe's priorities aren't out of whack as a person or even an employee, everyone works in order to better suit themselves and their families. However, when it boils down to it, McCabe's obligation as an athlete to this team and this city was to compete and play with desire every game, regardless of the state of his personal life. If he'd simply performed instead of getting comfortable with mediocrity then he never would have had to move his family in the first place. McCabe has every right to look out for his family, we as fans have every right to feel frustrated over his attitude to his commitments.

Chances getting smaller?

2008-08-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

it's a fact, if Kyle Wellwood burps on the ice, Nik Antropov is too high up to hear him

The Forechecker, a great hockey statistics blog, recently put up an article detailing size and weight of all 30 teams in the NHL. As you can see, the Leafs come up slightly below the league average, in 18th place. This is only slightly surprising to me, we actually shed some small guys in Tucker and Wellwood, and only really lost size in Gill when it boiled down to transactions. It also helps that waaay back in 07 when the Leafs were making another ill-fated playoff push it was the "Big Three" of Poni, Sundin, and Antro that I heard Philly's announcers talking about in a game, to them back then we were a big team that used it's size. Looking over our dudes though, most top out at 6' even, and guys like Stajan, Steen, Moore, Devereaux, Tlusty, Stralman, and Williams are pretty darned shrimpy.

Is this a big deal? I mean, the Sharks and Sens top the list and both appear to be dominant teams (in the regular season), but both perennial contenders Dallas and Detroit actually reach out at the bottom of the list. Dallas even played a fairly physical playoffs this past season, so it would appear that size isn't necessarily a determining factor when it comes down to team competitiveness and play style.

So why talk about something that apparently doesn't matter? Because Cliff Fletcher seems to think it does.

The Leafs selected eight players at this last draft, Fletcher's first in a while. Not one of them topped out below 6'2". Weight doesn't really apply to 18 year olds, but they project to be a pretty massive group of guys. Both Damien Cox and the boys at Hockey's Future seem skeptical of the actual talent level of the group, while Steve at another great hockey analysis blog begs to differ. The two big names past Schenn are Hayes and Stefanovich, both of whom definitely have first round skill levels, but both have question marks that are hard to argue with surrounding their consistency and work ethic in regards to their careers.

Were Fletcher's draft day decisions based on figures that appear to be meaningless? Or did he just pick the best guys that seemed available, and by coincidence they all bang their heads on the way out of their limos? I'm really interested to see how the big guys work out. The franchise already has a past neglecting small players, we will never hear the end of the Steve Sullivan catcalls.

I hate you, Bryan McCabe

2008-08-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

pictured here: Paragons of uselessness

Though this time it isn't because your idea of taking the man is poking at him with your stick from behind the goal line when he has an open net. It's not because you're a whiner, or a connoisseur of apologetic excuse making. It's not because of your stupid facial hair or shit-eating grin.

I hate you today because you're making me a liar.

I knew that, if I said you weren't moving long enough, you'd see your way out to spite me. Now that your stance is weakened, the end result is inevitable. You're like some poor unsuspecting victim at a bar, someone asks you to go grab a slice of pizza and after a while you go "Well, I suppose I am a little peckish" and then before you know it you wake up in some hellhole in Connecticut surrounded by Darcy Tucker jerseys. Your plane ticket's already been paid for, first class, because we like to treat our guys right while threatening to not play them.

I think the better question now is, who the hell even wants him?

mf37's Toronto Maple Leafs blog had an excellent piece covering the issue a few weeks ago, the market has changed a little bit since then so let's take a look:

The Variables

Location: McCabe still gets to choose where he goes, and then it all comes down to whether or not those specific teams are interested. Garth Snow is, for the first time in his life, playing hardball with the Leafs over the McCabe issue. Good for him, but like a retarded stepchild he's picking the exact wrong time to try out this exciting new concept. This is a team that had Bryan Berard and Marc-Andre Bergeron as it's first power play unit. Mark Streit's only one half of a pair, and well, we'll see how much of his production was a product of Montreal's system, as Souray didn't do so well his first year out.

I'm going to assume McCabe is not a total asshat (a stretch, I know) and say that family is very important to him, and that he'll want to stay close to New York or southern Ontario.

Cap room: Now, Fletcher's already gone on record saying we may have to take some salary back, this isn't a salary dump as the market probably won't allow that. This actually supposedly gives us a wider range of teams, as individual cap space isn't an issue.

Need: Free agent frenzy's over, and a lot of teams have addressed their needs on D. While the Boyle trade let us know that it's entirely possible to sign a contract with a no-trade and get traded immediately, not all teams are undergoing an ownership change.

That makes our potentials: New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators. Not too different from mf37's list, it's true. I didn't include Atlanta because, well, Georgia's a lot closer to Florida than it is to Rhode Island or the GTA, and if we include them we might as well include Tampa and Florida*.

The Islanders signed Streit, but still have loads of space and the need for a power play defensemen. The question is whether Wang will allow his team to spend higher, and if Snow will soften on his demands for a 1st rounder. I kind of doubt that either is likely knowing the Islanders.

The Sabres need a good powerplay dman and have the cap room to make anything possible. However, just re-signing Numminen fills up their roster slots and with guys like Sekera, Weber, and Gragnani looking to crack the line-up I think we'd have to take at least one bad dman back in order to make any trade remotely possible.

New Jersey's interesting, losing Rafalski hurt them a great deal, but they're right up against the cap. Their d-corps is modest, but their forward core is actually fairly expensive, with 8 guys out of 12 being paid at least $2.5 mil. With some of those guys being 35 year old John Madden, and 37 year old Bobby Holik, I can see some moves being made to allow a guy like Bryan in. Whether or not they want him at all is a better question.

The Rangers are out of the picture with the Redden signing and the amount of money they've invested in their vets; I can't conceive of a deal that would work and they have a solid enough core.

Ottawa's another interesting choice, they have space to do whatever they want and just lost Redden, but guys like Meszaros and Lee are supposed to be stepping up. I think the biggest impediment to this deal is the fact that I can't understand why a team that saw 8 games of Bryan McCabe last year would want him.

Oh Fuck We're Probably Keeping Him Anyway Aren't We

The Islanders are going to remain the front-runners in this discussion, the circumstances are too perfect for them not to. Looking up and down a list I can see Buffalo, Ottawa, or Jersey also receiving some consideration, though the deal would likely be epic.

I'd say the market for a $5mil broken, old defenseman whose peak was two years ago is pretty slim, especially when he gets to choose the region his team would be in. I'm still optimistic that the deal will work itself out by the start of the season, but this list exercise was depressing in it's limitations. Just stop being a dick, Garth Snow.

*rumours of a McCabe to Florida trade have gone around despite being tremendously dumb. With Bouwmeester likely to leave Florida will need a good point shot, but the location works against this. With Belak McCabe's at least got someone to talk to, but I'm putting this into the 'no' category until McCabe proves me wrong again and accepts a trade to Los Angeles.

Just when you've lost faith in the general public...

2008-08-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Some guy named GuelphGuy posts in the comments section of theStar on this article and totally redeems the lot of them.

"How many articles can you print about absolutely nothing? Please just stop, and give us the news when there IS news."

Beautiful.

Straight to the point, being critical of the media that's manufactured it's own monster in regards to this Sundin story. Let's be honest here, nobody's talking about Joe Sakic, nobody's talking about Teemu Selanne, because most legitimate media have the sense to know that it's a dead story. The player will make a decision or they won't, and when they do it won't be in secret, it won't be something that needs revealing.

What's been pissing me off is the amount of aggrandizement that Mats has been getting over this bullshit press.

People are pissed off because they see articles being printed every other day that don't say anything, even from decent sources. Rather than blame the piss-poor decision making of these establishments, they're blaming Mats for taking his time on a very personal decision here. This is one case where you really should be shooting the messenger, for instead of delivering a message you don't like he's stopping by your house and talking about the fit of his codpiece while delivering the same expired coupons you've been getting for weeks.

The media is pissed off because they've been following this story so closely, devoted so much time to what anybody could have told them was a loser's proposition, that they're lashing out at him and questioning the heart and work ethic of a guy who could come to their house and take it apart brick by brick with a hockey stick and some herring. I love the idea that people who can't even find a real story to print and who turn on their subjects and audience so quickly are questioning anybody's work ethic or heart.

So enough. The media seems to think that Mats is entitled to come back and give them a huge story for all the time they've spent on him. The public seems to think that Mats isn't entitled to do whatever he wants, when he wants. Unfortunately, Mats doesn't take shit from anyone, and if his long decision making process is pissing people off then I'm glad, I hope they stew for at least another week.

Cheering and Team Selection

2008-07-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

Over at Puck Daddy and a certain Toronto Maple Leafs blog there's been a heated topic over the subject of picking a team to root for. I find this really interesting, mostly because the reactions have been outrageously extreme.

this pretty much sums up my view of Leaf fans yelling at each other

Now, I'm a Leafs fan, no doubt about it. Live in Toronto, go to games, hate people in Habs jerseys, etc.

However, when I was just a young lad my aunt moved to San Jose. When she left I told her I'd root for the Sharks for her. She's still living in California, I'm still cheering for the Sharks to win*. Plus I really liked Street Sharks as a kid.

I don't have to tell you how awesome this toy was

* The caveat is that if the Sharks play the Leafs, the Leafs must win. I was pissed when we blew a 2-1 lead to them last season. Sorry auntie, my team vs. your team, my team must rip Thornton's head off.

I should also say that there's a chance I'll be moving down to California in the future. In that eventuality I'll be buying a Sharks jersey. I'd still be a Leaf fan, and I'd show up in my colours whenever an Eastern team came to town, but at the end of the day I'm a big fan of teal too.

I can understand not really cheering for a certain team over another. With certain applications of modern technology I can stream just about any NHL game onto my TV, and when the season's on I don't care who's playing, I'll watch all night. Most days I couldn't give a damn if Colorado beats Columbus, and the team I want to lose is the first team that pisses me off.

I'm also just breaking into soccer (football). Right now I'm just cheering for my favourite player, Michael Ballack, after seeing him with the Germans in the World Cup. This makes me a de facto Chelsea fan, not bad because they have a similar colour scheme to my boys in blue, but a fact that makes me a little uncomfortable because I haven't developed any attachment to the history or city of the team.

With all that, I understand not really having a favourite team. While I think the people who get jerseys of divisional rivals sewn together are a little confused, I'm willing to grant that there are in fact degrees of fandom out there. Us in the Barilkosphere, most of us are die hard blue and white, but I can tell you right now most of the people I know who call themselves Leaf fans don't know the name Kulemin, or Stralman, they still think Owen Nolan is playing for us, and if they turned on the TV next season and saw Cujo in net they'll think he never left.

It's weird, but some people don't seem to take this hometown win or die sports fan thing very seriously.

Footballers hate cunts, and Cox

2008-07-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

So a couple days ago I stumbled upon an article in the Globe about John Carver (coach of the TFC) responding to the negative media in Toronto. It took me a while to find it online because it's not linked anywhere on their soccer page for some reason.

Some choice quotes:

"I sit and wonder, why hasn't (Toronto's) hockey team won anything? Why hasn't the baseball team been successful lately? Because I'm coming from the outside and I don't know if you guys get your heads together cause you don't like writing nice things. ... You just want to write sh--..."

"Does Toronto want their teams to be successful? I'm asking you."

""Do you want me to get up and (leave)," Carver asked with incredulity."

Now, the article goes on to detail how he's been suffering under the stress of the media coverage, that in England he only gives weekly updates but in Canada he's expected to appear every day.

We hate on Cox, Simmons, et. al. for their rhetoric and the fact that they always point the finger at their fanbase whenever their idiocy and general negativity is thrown under scrutiny. Rare is it in history that you can continue to be paid not just after you call your consumer base clods, but because you can barely hide your disdain for them. It reminds me of when I used to work in a comic book store.

As much as we hate on them for their opinions of us, what about the players? We quickly dismiss the thought regularly, these are after all adults making millions and they can just fucking deal with it. But whether consciously or subconsciously, what kind of affect does this constant attention have on their psyches?

Players blow it off in interviews but they hardly want to come off as whiners. At the end of the day, is the topic that we blow off as childish in fact the reason for our downfall? Is it because of us, the media that we'll digest constantly, the need for more interviews, more news, that our teams under perform? That our guys choke when it's most important? That losing a few games becomes a losing spiral, that the same problems that plague our teams never get fixed?

Is it odd that it takes someone from England (a football crazy country) to come in and tell us that our ravenous consumption of sport media is ludicrous? Possibly detrimental to his team? Could the media in fact be a major contributing factor to not only the discontented mentality fans have towards their teams, but also to the play of the teams themselves?

I don't like the idea of blaming the media for our teams' woes, there are more obvious factors at play here than a subversive media turning our players all into depressed choke artists. But every Toronto fan knows that the media here does factor in greatly in the lives of our professional athletes. Carver isn't telling us anything we didn't suspect, but a coach from a foreign land playing a game that hasn't yet been embraced in Canada has a bit better of an outsiders' view on this city than we do.

Perhaps more than just the team will need to change in the coming years for success to come our way.

Offseason Boredom Post #1

2008-07-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

Alright, so next season is basically a write-off in terms of rooting for the Leafs to win. They probably won't, and they'd be better off in the end if they ended up being the worst team in the NHL.

What, then, do us suffering Leafs fans have to look forward to next season? What do we cheer for?

I would say that if we can't crush our opposition on the scoreboard next year, we might as well try and crush them physically and spiritually.

With that in mind, I've compiled a Mark Bell (S)Hitlist tm assuming he's even on our roster next year (and I'd like to keep him, he fits Fletch's view of being tough to play against, a physical guy and he still has some skill):

1. Dany Heatley.
Just look at him. And really, Heatley kills Dan Snyder and gets off for being at the legal limit of alcohol, Mark Bell hits a signpost and gives a guy "whiplash" (onset symptoms after realizing that Bell makes over 2mil a year) and has to do time? Basically, Bell is a danger to society when drunk, while Heatley proves he is more of a danger to society while sober and gets off. WTF justice system? That's all kinds of whiggity-whack. It's time for Bell to show Heater that when justice fails, street justice prevails.

2. Sean Avery
I'm going to preface this by coming clean, I hate Sean Avery. A lot. Some don't, I do. I hate the fact that he's a dumbass, that he's an arrogant prick, that he dated Elisha Cuthbert, and I doubly hate the fact that he always scores on us. Plus, stick-waving? Mark Bell gonna show that there ain't no muther getting away with none of that bull-ish in our house.

3. Marian Hossa
I don't disagree him signing with the Wings at all. But it would be too damn funny if, after all that winning the cup stuff and burning his bridges with the Pens, he missed the playoffs and they were eliminated. Plus I know some Pens fans that would gush over the schadenfreude.

4. Andrew Peters
I still haven't gotten over the golf swing. How did it feel to be on the Sabres this year you worthless prick?

Any other suggestions?

(please note that the preceding message was in pure jest and that OGiB does not in fact support the bodily harm of any human being, Dany Heatley excluded)

Off topic ahoy!

2008-07-21T00:29:00.001-07:00

This is Nikita Filatov

This is Amanda Bynes in She's the Man

I kno rite? :D

It's been a while, since I could...

2008-07-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

So my Stralman jersey should be arriving any day now, meaning that he'll soon be traded (no joke). I haven't updated in a while because... there hasn't been anything to talk about.

It looks like Frogren will after all be allowed to come to camp at least, and then an arbitrator will decide on his contract. The problem inherent there is that Frogren's counting on his signing bonus to buy out his old contract in Sweden. It looks like he'll get the money at first, but as to what happens if the NHLPA's grievance turns south on us seems dicey. I'm looking forward to having a Dman with some footspeed to take over Gill's role, so I hope everything turns out in our favour.

We acquired Hollweg. Why I'm not sure, nor do I care overmuch, he's a depth guy that can always start in the minors, we gave up Pittsburgh's 5th for him so, well, whatever. However I don't agree that we could have just used someone from the Marlies in his place, as none of the Marlies looking to make a spot this year actually fight. Newbury tried once and I doubt he'll do it again, and both he and Ondrus actually comprise scoring forwards on the Marl. Earl's also traditionally been a scorer and a penalty killer, not the kind of guy who sits in the box for 5 mins. Really, beyond Kyle Rogers and maybe Foster or Boyce, there aren't a lot of guys on that roster who take the role of agitators.

I think Sundin will re-sign with us. If money was an issue then he would have taken Vancouver up on it's offer, however they don't offer him much in terms of probable success. There hasn't been much out of Montreal's camp lately, and I think that despite their success there's some question marks regarding that club next year, namely will Price pull a Raycroft, can the Kostitsyn's hope to be as wildly successful as they were, does Kovalev revert back to his old self, was Streit actually valuable, etc. At the end of the day I think that the options available to him aren't good enough to warrant turning his back on his team of 14 years.

They call him Finger but... I've never seen him fing

2008-07-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

Signing Jeff Finger was a great idea.

Alright, maybe not, but it most certainly wasn't a bad one. The Leafs acquire a budding d-man who had a breakout season his first full season in the NHL. You overpay in free agency and you pay for potential in the new NHL, the Leafs did both. God forbid that Fletcher takes advantage of the fact that we're rebuilding to try and find some guys whose best days aren't behind them yet.

I know we've gotten burned by bad contracts in the past, but it's time to let go. This is not Bryan McCabe. Nor is it Darcy Tucker. If Finger doesn't work out, then we can waive him or trade him. If we need cap space then we can waive him or trade him. If another team is willing to overpay we can even trade him at the deadline and acquire decent assets as well as cap relief. Buyouts? I know Damien Cox has his head up his ass, but the rest of Leafs Nation needs to calm down a bit. There are plenty more ways to get rid of most players other than a buyout.

There's been a lot of smoke blowing at both sides of the Finger debate, so let's try and clear the air a bit. Finger is not Colorado's #1 shutdown defensive guy. Nor was Adam Foote for most of the season, as he was acquired at the trade deadline. Kurt Sauer missed almost 30 games last season with a concussion, which is all kinds of bad news for a defenseman. Finger had the most goals of any Avs defensemen while posting the second best plus/minus next to Sauer, whom Finger played 18 more games than.

There's been a lot of observation floating around the blog world about Finger "not being very physical" or "...selective in [hitting]... almost tentative". Those people are idiots. Finger was second on the team in hits with 121, just behind Ruslan Salei who posted most of his 162 in Florida. He was way above Adam Foote's 93, most of which were posted in Columbus. So let's call him the most frequent hitter on the Avs. His 121 hits also tie Pavel Kubina for the most on the Leafs roster last season.

Want more? His 8.1 shooting percentage also ties Kubina for best on the Leafs, and was the best on the Avs among any defenseman who played over 50 games. Finger was the only defenseman who played more than 55 games on the Avs to come up plus in giveaways/takeaways, and not a single player on the Leafs last season was anything but severely negative in those stats.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if he pans out or not, we want to be losing. We couldn't grab a quick return on our assets like Philly, we're not going to become contenders next season. The best we can hope for is a slow burn like Chicago, several last place finishes turning into an exciting young roster. Say it with me Leafs fans: We. Don't. Want. To. Win.

Deep breaths.

Still in a daze...

2008-07-05T01:31:00.000-07:00

Trying to forget that we ever gave Jeff Finger $3.5 million.
(kidding, I don't mind the Finger signing one bit, but that's for another post)

I'm also not going to get too much into the FA frenzy deals, for the purpose of brevity but also because they're better detailed on this great Toronto Maple Leafs blog.

Important news!

Dominic Moore has signed a one-year deal worth $900,000. It's always fun to have a Toronto boy back, and he adds a lot of speed and grit, as well as great work on the PK. He should have a blast with Mayers.

Mikhail Grabovski has also signed a one-year deal worth $850,000. It's good to have him but a real shame we couldn't lock him down for more. The other worrying thing is the gist of that article reads like he'll be promised top 6 minutes or at least PP time. I know he was lighting it up in the AHL, but he's not really a known quantity at the NHL level yet.

Which brings me to a better question:

What the hell are we going to do with all these forwards?

Right now on forward we've got Antropov, Ponikarovsky, Steen, Stajan, Blake, Hagman, Bell, Mayers, Devereaux, Moore, Tlusty, and Grabovski in our lineup. Which rounds out to an even twelve guys.

Looking to make the roster next year are Kulemin (who is basically a lock), Earl, Williams, and Mitchell. I'm not really counting Boyce or Foster (mostly because I didn't see much of Boyce and I'm not a fan of Fosters).

So what can we do to free up some roster space? Devereaux could act as a spare forward on the bench. Though I think he's still got something to give Earl or Boyce could easily fill his role come camp. There's been stirrings about Bell being shipped off/waived to the minors, depending on how his off season goes. I personally think that's a mistake as he still has a bundle of upside, but he might not do well having Ron Wilson as his coach, and would free up another spot. Trades are another thing entirely, and though I think that nobody from the old roster is safe (including Steen and Stajan) there are some decent candidates. Poni is basically an aging depth winger, he's good for 20 goals a season and should do well on any team looking to add a little scoring. He hasn't been exceptional and we have young guys looking to prove themselves in our top 6, so I think he's a decent candidate for a trade. Blake might take some harder doing, but there are a lot of teams hard up for scoring wingers out there and I believe we can find a way to get it done. Cap room isn't really what's needed, it's simply that he doesn't fit into a rebuilding philosophy of getting younger or being able to contribute down the stretch (which Blake will be in no condition to 3 years from now, cancer or not). Of course depending on camp any of Tlusty, Earl, Mitchell, Boyce, or Grabovski could be sent down with little fuss, but I think management knows we need to start giving young guys bigger roles. Should be interesting anyway.

Our defense is suffering a bit of a crisis too, with McCabe, Kaberle, Kubina, White, Colaiacovo, Stralman, Finger, Kronwall, and apparently Jonas Frogren putting their fingers in the pie. One of McCabe or Kubina should be gone come camp (my money's on Kubina) freeing up a spot, and Kronwall's a 7th dman at best. While it's possible Stralman could start the season in the AHL he's made it clear he does not want to be there and has proven that with a little bit more size and experience he can be capable in the majors. What I think is more likely is us moving one of White or Colaiacovo, likely White due to Carlo's injury concerns.

I'm excited to see our revamped roster in action, no matter how bad it is.

Sundin: Deadlines? What is word?

2008-06-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Mats is waiting for a shirt to be printed with his contract demands on it

So Cliff Fletcher gave Mats until today to come up with his decision. Stay in Toronto, sign in Montreal and give the team some assets, or go to free agency knowing that the Leafs would be moving forward without tagging space for him in their cap should he decide to return later on this summer.

Mats has the right to decide his future, and he's earned his right to take his time without being strong-armed by any hockey club. Mats' decision making isn't in question, what the Leafs will do now with this knowledge is.

Hopefully, and sadly, this means that they'll go out and sign some guys to flesh out our roster without Sundin. There's some decent names out there, Radim Vrbata, Michael Ryder, Jason Williams, Brooks Orpik, Ron Hainsey, Niklas Hagman, Antii Miettinen.

Fletcher's in the market for regulars on D, as Schenn won't be ready, Stralman really should be in the AHL, and he's banking on Carlo's injury problems. Combine that with the hopes of trading McCabe or Kubina next year and we've got at least one D slot open. He's also looking at a top 6 impact forward (not like we haven't been looking for one for years) and apparently some guys to round out our bottom 6.

Now, I really think we should be getting our young guys some experience, but loading up our lines full of them probably isn't a great idea. I wouldn't mind Glen Metropolit if he wasn't so old, but please Cliff, no more than a couple FA's for the bottom lines. The "liability on skates" versions under Maurice weren't great, but we're not trying to pull a Detroit and sign Tie Domi out of retirement.

That leaves backup goaltending. Ty Conklin's available and good, but may be looking for a better pay-day or more ice time with the performance he gave last season. Alex Auld is available, and did well with Boston, but he may (will) struggle unless Wilson gets the Leafs defensive act together shortly. Curtis Joseph is a name that's been shuffled around and why not? We've got Cliffer in here, let's bring back Roberts (though it looks like he'll be signed by Tampa) too! Seriously though, if we sign him I hope it's so he retires in his first game and we get him a front office job.

Whatever happens Tuesday, I know I won't be leaving the house.

Bryan McCabe rumours are silly

2008-06-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

this is where he should be playing

I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't think McCabe is moving. He's been asked too many times and stated unequivocally that he's staying too many times to back down now. He seems like a dumb, proud guy and I think the media's putting his back to the wall with this decision.

I'd also like to point out that the Leafs can't actually make McCabe not show up for training camp, as he can be suspended for not, and he's under contract. The only way to get him off our roster without buying him out is to scratch him every game, taking up a player spot and generally creating a sticky PR mess between us, him and the NHLPA. The NHL also keeps watch on teams not icing the best roster they can in order to place a check on tanking (I guess we'll have to be subtle), so if we wanted to keep him as a healthy scratch all year then we'd have to prove that we aren't any worse off replacing him with Staffan Kronwall. A tall order, to be sure.

Oh, and there was this little article printed by David Shoalts (a pillar of integrity in a shitty town for sports journalism) wherein Fletcher calls not playing McCabe "the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard" and that "Fletcher said he does not plan to prevent McCabe from playing. To do so would violate the collective agreement".

Hopefully that settles what we're doing with McCabe then.

The Leafs have been doing things?

2008-06-27T23:05:00.000-07:00

Alright, it's been a while. First off, let me congratulate Fletch on landing us Schenn. Great pick, we've got enough centers in the system and as much as I liked Boedker Schenn has more quality. Kudos.

Also, I'd like to blast Damien Cox for being a bigoted idiot. In this article he blasts the Leafs for not going with "skill" for their top 5 pick like the 5 other teams in the top 6 picked. In this article, he suggests that the Leafs take Schenn along with the 10th pick Tyler Myers (dream on Damien) for their "twin towers defense of the future" not four days before the aforementioned blasting of the Leafs. How does this make sense? It's simple, the Leafs are always wrong, and because Cox doesn't know anything he didn't know that Schenn was ranked in the consensus top 6 (and thus beyond the 7th pick).

As for the buyouts, well, we'll start with the easy one.

Goodbye Andrew. All the best, maybe one day when your confidence is regained you'll stop dropping into the butterfly when an opposing player crosses the blue line and learn to come out from your net. I honestly did believe you'd be a good goaltender someday, and I still do. But thank God we've got Vesa.

Now for the contested buyouts. When he came in Fletcher stated that the team would have a new look and we'd have 5-6 new guys next season. I'm not sure what others thought he meant, but generally revamping a team and rebuilding involves getting rid of old guys and underperformers.

Tucker was getting old, getting injury prone, and most of all he was an old stalwart from a time long past. It's not that I don't think he can't continue to play at a high level in the future, I think he'll make a team very happy come July 1st. Sad thing for Tucker is that he'll probably be broken down or retired by the time the Leafs would have a practical use for his services. That said, I fully believe buying him out had little to do with his relative playing ability into the future. Buying out Tucker was a locker room move, getting rid of him changes the comfort level of the room and helps to wean out the 'blame the refs', 'blame injuries', 'don't perform until the last 1/4 of the season' mentality that seemed to be creeping into our room. Blaming man-games lost to injury is such a Ferguson/Maurice-ism.

Wellwood is a bit of a tender issue, he had such promise for Leafs fans everywhere and was probably one of the most skilled forwards on the team not named Sundin. Reports also pegged him as lazy, a bit of a creep, and of poor conditioning. Rumour even has it that MLSE threatened to fine him unless he brought his workouts up to standard. There's good odds that if half of those rumours are true then Wellwoods hernia, second hernia, and touch-up surgery were all actually, legitimately his fault. If that's the case then waiting for him to one day become healthy is a fool's errand, if he can't commit to bettering himself then the injuries will keep coming. Not only that, but as a professional athlete, if he's not willing to do his job by staying in shape and performing to expectations then he deserves to be demoted or removed from the roster, it's good business sense that you don't reward people who violate their contracts by offering them a new one.

The Leafs dropped a good amount of skill in a few days, and not for more skill. Part of Fletcher's job isn't just to manage the team in terms of talent, but also to turn around a locker room that was getting too comfortable with losing out and believing that they didn't deserve it, that next year would be their year through no understandable reasoning. I'll stick by Cliff for dropping Tucker and Welly because he's more privy to the attitudes and private lives of his players than we are, and because I knew that moves such as this had to happen.

It just doesn't mean that I have to feel good about it.

It occurs to me...

2008-06-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

That the formatting of this place looks a lot like Down Goes Brown. Sorry about that, honest mistake, I'll work on it when I've got some more time. Excellent blog, for all you Leafs fans.

This isn't really Leafs news...

2008-06-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

Alright, Garth Snow, repeat after me:

Alexei Yashin.

Alexei Yashin.

What the fuck are you thinking? Stop it now.

Marlies to Watch Out For

2008-06-11T02:22:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, draft aside it's now time to start looking ahead to the future for the good ol' blue and white. Here goes, in no particular order:

Robbie Earl: This kid has wheels and a nose for the offensive zone. One assist in nine games doesn't look too great on his score sheet, but he created chances every game he was in. He absolutely looked great at the NHL level (though tired after a few games and eventually injured). If he can get over his injury and work hard on his conditioning this summer there's no reason he shouldn't break camp as a third line/energy guy. He was a scoring star in college... don't expect that to transfer over.

Jeremy Williams: Definitely the worst Williams of the Justin/Jason/Jeremy trio (no relation). This kid is a bit of an enigma for Leafs fans. He's got a great, rising shot and a knack for finding scoring position on the ice, something lacking in our forward core. He's also small, defensively terrible and can't really knock around the boards. That spells liability in the big leagues. If his performance is any indication he needs top flight minutes to produce (second and third goals were set up by Mats Sundin, Sebastien Caron had something to do with his first). He'll likely never gain the size or two way ability he'll need to stick with the big club, and Maurice putting him on checking lines was wasteful and harmful to us last season.

John Mitchell: This guy looks like he could be pretty decent someday. Good size, decent shot and passing, decent vision. There's a chance he could make 4th line center next season, though he'll need to work at it. If anything he'll warrant a cup of coffee with the big club at some point.

Staffan Kronwall: Already been called up several times and has been unspectacular but steady. If he could just throw his body around more he'd be valuable as he makes decent passes and has the size he needs, but he seems to shy away from contact and needs work on his timing. He threw some good ones in the playoffs this season, but mentally he probably doesn't have it in him to carry his game up to a higher level. Good to know that we aren't entirely screwed if we need an AHL call-up though.

Alex Foster: Kind of sucks, but he got a call-up at the end of the season. Another 3rd/4th energy guy, he's a little small and needs some work along the boards. Has some offensive skill but nothing to write home about, and probably won't translate it to the NHL level.

Kris Newbury: Should stay the hell in the AHL, where he belongs. He's a scorer/penalty killer by trade, as much as he grinds he's got little place on a checking line with the big club. Still, depending on who we move a slot may be open for him, and he's been a regular filler for the Leafs when they've needed help. Hopefully they'll center him with some Marlies.

Brent Aubin: Once scored 50 goals and over 100 points in the QMJHL! *rolleyes* Another energy guy, he might be worth a cup of coffee and hey, maybe he'll surprise us.

Justin Pogge: Needs to start a full season with the Marlies, and is plagued by consistency issues like a lot of young goalies. If he gets called up (he probably will) he'll either do amazing or get shelled, either way there's no way he should make back-up next year, if only for his own development.

So there we are, a bunch of maybe bottom sixers and a goalie who's not quite ready. Quite a crew, though I'm looking forward to at least a couple playing with the Leafs next season.

Sundin: Major dick?

2008-06-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of shit flying as to Mats Sundin's future with the team. To recap, I'm going to go ahead and say a few things:

1. Mats Sundin is the all-time scoring leader of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

2. He endured years of going nowhere and early playoff exits, crappy teams, and crappy management, 14 years to be precise.

3. He's arguably the greatest Leaf and Captain of all time.

He should retire a Leaf, that much is true. That can also be done, however, after he's moved on. He deserves a cup, that is also true, and he sure as hell ain't getting it here.

Now, eschewing all that trade deadline nonsense, what's best for both parties here? If Sundin stays we keep our long serving captain and have a mentor for our young guys in the future to come. If he goes, well, I just hope he tells us soon so we can trade his rights to somebody.

Either way I wish him luck and the best, he gave us his best years and while I'll be glad to have him back I'm interested in what the franchise will look like without him.

Well, and it starts

2008-06-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

A "new era" with the hiring of Ron Wilson as head coach of the Maple Leafs. But what does this mean for our poor, oft misunderstood club?

Hopefully not a winning record, please God. We need to stockpile decent prospects (Tlusty doesn't really count) and we're not quite there yet. I'm not advocating that we hire a bad coach by any means, as keeping Maurice or hiring some idiot like Barry Melrose would probably do more harm than good to young guys that we'll be looking to grow into real players in time. All I'm asking is that Wilson have the presence of mind to get our young guys playing time, regardless of the mistakes that they make as a part of growing into their roles.

He doesn't seem to think that the Leafs have a shot at the real season for another couple years, unlike a lot of retarded fans out there. I quote:

"If we can be knocking on the door in two years, that will be a tremendous accomplishment," he said. "And then we just have to knock the door down."

This is not a guarantee that we'll achieve playoff success in two years, it's a statement that if we are in two years it will be a freakin' miracle and we should all be proud of ourselves.

Why is this a good thing? Well, for one this is not a coach looking to win to save his job. We all saw what happened with Maurice, refusing to play Raycroft, refusing to play Pogge when he was up, putting Williams and Tlusty on the 3rd and 4th lines. That's not how you deal with a team whose playoff hopes are slim for now and into the future.

I'm still skeptical about this hiring, getting a coach before a GM, Wilson being kind of an asshole, etc. But it seems like a step in the proper direction for a team, and it seems like Wilson was briefed by MLSE in a realistic fashion. They didn't want him to make any promises or short term goals, he went up and he stated the reality that the franchise is in, and so for now we should feel a little bit of satisfaction.