You have to pardon my lack of enthusiasm for the good ship Maple Leafs these days. I have to admit that their on ice performance and more so results has got me a tad bit apathetic. More so, the coverage of the team has done nothing to excite me. I know it seems a little bit odd to say it but I miss the days when the Leafs were getting carved for everything they did…

When those who used to bash them all the time, are telling us that things aren’t as bleak as they appear, well, where the hell is the fun in that? I watched a good part of last night’s game tonight and was left with the conclusion that there are 3 players on the Maple Leafs that are potential difference makers.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way, I mean how big an idiot would I be not to mention Phil Kessel? That being said, he is the one guy on the Leafs team who you noticed every time he was on the ice. When little TSM plays, there is always one guy on every team who is eons ahead of the rest of the team. Kessel is that guy on the Leafs. There is no one who compares with his speed of talent- no one close. The hope and I do mean hope is that Kadri resides somewhere in the same zip code.

The second is Gustavsson. He stands tall has a presence and despite only playing in a few games, he has earned the confidence of his teammates. Yes he has made mistakes. What he hasn’t done is let in the crap goal at the most inopportune time as Toskala always seems to manage to do. As Gustavsson’s plays goes, so too will the fate of this team.

Lastly is Kaberle. The guy who I said they had to deal last summer is playing out of his head. He, is eons ahead of the rest of the pack on defence right now. There is no one playing at his level.

The problem is, that the drop off from those three is gigantic. Brian Burke talked about having his skill guys and then his plumbers- a top group and a bottom group. Right now the distance to getting to that point appears to be huge. The fall off from Kaberle to the next defenceman is amazing. What’s more unbelievable is that the next best guy, in my opinion is Ian White! The guy who didn’t dress early next season. Here is a guy who doesn’t have a ton of talent but works his ass off every shift. The drop in forwards is worse. There isn’t one guy right now who can score. After Kessel went 0-10 last night (and I am not knocking him), who is left to score the goals? i have confidence in no one.

A friend emailed me last night that the Maple Leafs are 19 players away. You have to laugh. The alternative is much worse isn’t it? I don’t know why it has happened but the skill level, especially upfront is embarrassing. Grabovsky, Blake, Stajan, Hagman are all, for the most part totally infective. You have to think that at some point relatively soon it will make sense to bring the college kids up and let them go. I mean last year Luke Schenn played well when he was getting tons of minutes. Why not say to Hanson and Bozak (who may or may not have had h1n1 flu) guys, go out there and play as hard as you can and don’t worry about screwing up- I will still throw you out there again. It’s pretty much what Wilson did last year with Schenn. I can tell you this as a fan, I would be much more interested in watching those guys then the aforementioned group now. I watch the current group and I just get angry. At least if they were kids, you would be patient, feel that there is a system in place etc.

So….Burke has a foundation of 3. Kadri, as pathetic as it sounds right now is the great hope to get to 4. It’s no wonder Burke has been so quiet of late, the magnitude of the job ahead has to be incredibly daunting.

You have to love the television business… Sportsnet drew huge numbers for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning game last night. It was in the top 10 most watched events in Sportsnet’s history. So, what does David Akande say? ““This number proves once again that Sportsnet is the destination for hockey that matters. Whether it is for the pre-game show, intermissions
or the game itself, we are the home for the Toronto Maple Leaf fan.”

Classic! Hell, this game could have been on Rogers 10 and it would have drawn the number. I think what Akande meant was thank you Phill and the entire Maple Leafs training and medical staff for getting him back so early as otherwise we would be shitting bricks.

Meanwhile, one has to wonder about the pressures and limitations on writers for the MSM. I say that because when you read Bill Houston’s blog these days, he is a lot more daring than he used to be while writing for the Globe and Mail. Case in point:

” Don’t take it personally, Bruce. Avery trashes everybody. Besides, you are fat. And if Avery motivated you to lose a few pounds, that’s a good thing.”

No, “Bruce” doesn’t refer to the author of “off the post”, rather it is referring to the head coach of the Washington Capitals. Boudreau was apparently taken back by Sean Avery’s comments about Boudreau’s weight.

Am I alone in thinking that now that Houston is out from under the Globe and Mail he is going to be a lot more candid than he was before. For some reason I just can’t see him calling Bruce Boudreau fat while writing his old column. A refreshing change to say the least. I guess he subscribes to the truth hurts philosophy.

Lastly, I am sure i am in the minority here, however i don’t think it’s that big a deal if some professional athletes got their H1N1 shots ahead of the rest of us. To be honest I kind of expected it. Oh, and I think what David Branch did today took enormous balls. I would have preferred it if he had tossed the Erie coach as well. Branch’s rationale was that players lack the respect and that is why the injury took place (combined with the current health of the victim). Well, if a player skates 40-50ft at breakneck speed and pulverizes another player, one has to think that part of that follows the coaching philosophy of the team. I feel for the kid who got suspended- but not nearly as much as I do for the victim or his family.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

Houston is here

I was out most of the day today so I didn’t get a chance to listen to much radio. Thankfully, Bruce Arthur was listening when Brian Burke was on the Fan 590. Contrary to what some have written recently about Brian Burke, the guy gets it. He knows what he has to do. The question is does he know how to do it or is he able to do it again?

“”It corrodes your confidence,” Burke told The Fan590 yesterday. “I think your forwards won’t gamble at all on the offensive end, and they won’t hang around and take a chance on a loose puck because they figure they’ve got to get back. Your [defencemen] give up the blue lines, both blue lines, way too quickly, way too easily.”

The “IT” is shitty goaltending. As you have read here and other places, bad goaltending effects the entire psyche of the team. It’s not just the bad goals, its the total effect on the entire team.

“Right now, we’re playing with our third and fourth goaltender in the organization. No one else in the NHL is doing that, and it’s hurting us, it’s showing up.”

Well, at least we agree on the problem. The question is does anyone really have any faith in #’s 1 and 2? Someone who’s opinion I kind of respect has told me privately that they are convinced that the Burke/Wilson plan involved getting the entire town turned on Vesa to get him out of here. Now the comment was partially in jest, however the sentiment was pretty clear. There is no way they wanted to start O for….. but……

“He told The Fan yesterday that he learned his goaltending lesson in Vancouver, where Dan Cloutier sabotaged some pretty good teams, whether due to injuries or otherwise. “So I got to Anaheim and I said, ‘Never again will I be short on goaltending,” Burke said. “‘Never again.’

Ummmmmmmmmmm….my never seems to have come around pretty quickly no?

“Goaltending is like pitching,” he told the radio station. “It doesn’t matter how good the rest of your team is … It doesn’t matter what other positions you solve, it doesn’t matter if you’re GM of the year for the other positions – if you don’t have goaltending, you’re going home.”

You see, I agree with everything the guy says. No I don’t think you rush to judgement after 6 or 7 games. But….As Kenny Rogers said, or sang, you got to know when to hold em….. Forget the Monster for now. He is too young and too raw. The question is very simple. Can Vesa Toskala be a number one goalie here? It’s not whether he is a number one goalie. Lots of players have left the big smoke and gone on to play well elsewhere. Is Vesa done here? That is the question Burke needs to answer. Right now he is a team without an ace, a number 2 or number three pitcher. His players are playing like every pitch is going to end up over the fence. He is saying all the right things. The question is what does he do about it???? I wonder what his new goalie guru thinks of Vesa. Both Burke and Wilson were pretty tough on Toskala last year. His play so far can not have endured them any more. One can wonder why if he is saying all these things right now why he entered the season with a questionable number one, a rookie number two and well, Joey.

It seems pretty obvious that, as he said above, all the moves he made over the summer are pretty irrelevant until he finds a goalie. A guy who will relax the players in Toronto and carry the load until Jonas is ready and seasoned. His front office staff have to find that guy who can come in and, oh, I don’t know, make a big save right out of the gate. Burke knows it, question is can he get it. Time will tell.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

Bruce Arthur is here

Brian Burke Is

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