Leafs Lose; Cup Hopes in Doubt, Ontario Shamed

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...

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

"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...

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?

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

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

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.