Last night’s game with the Ducks was a breakout for many Maple Leaf players. Hagman and Kaberle come to mind as obvious choices. Clearly the monster allowed the Buds to relax a little enroute to 11 power plays. It is not going to be easy if they have to rely on 11 powerplays every night to win a game. I am pretty sure that the Maple Leafs out of the first period were just under 10 minutes in time with the man advantage.

So with a few guys appearing, at least for night to get their game on, there is one guy who just clearly is out of it. His play, for lack of a better word, sucks. That would be none other than whipping boy Jason Blake. Forget for a small second the amount of cash he is earning. Forget the number of years he is playing and just look at the stats through the first several games. Through 9 games he has 1 goal, 2 assists, he is a -7 with 6 penalty minutes and 31 shots on net. At this pace he should be thanking everyone alive if he gets close to 20 goals this year let alone the 25 he had last year. It has become more and more apparent that the guy simply can’t play. He looked totally lost and disinterested throughout the entire game last night. Talk about a guy destined to play for the Marlies right now. I can’t for the life of me understand why Burke hasn’t followed through on his promise to bury guys who aren’t performing irrespective of their contract. Here is a guy who makes big bucks for no, not little, no bang. There has to be someone down on the farm who can produce as well as he can with a small percentage of the salary cap hit.

As demoralizing as it can be for a team to have a goalie let in easy shot after easy shot, it has to be equally as troubling to see a guy as untalented as Blake is get 12-16 minutes per game. Hell Luke Schenn has seen his ice time rocked back under 10 minutes and this clown is nearly averaging 15? Schenn’s a rookie. Enough is enough Brian, swallow hard, bite the bullet and bury JFJ’s wonder boy. Perhaps, not likely you can do something with him on re-entry waivers. Blake is totally ineffective offensively. He is a liability defensively. And to top it off he makes a lot of money.

All of those things to me scream of demotion. So far, in this respect Burke has yet to walk the walk. He has said he would do it. We are just waiting for him to do it. Let’s hope that Blake is the first to go, setting an example of the others who are out there floating.

@yyzsportsmedia

Get this sports fans, you know the sportsnet story earlier today, the one about Burke discussing a potential deal which involved trading Kaberle, Schenn and the #7 pick overall to Tampa for the #2 pick over, the one that Doug MacLean reported? ALL BULLSHIT. Sources close to Sportsnet are telling TSM that Sportsnet knows they’re in hot water over this story. The story was completely FALSE.

Brian Burke had to call Luke Schenn and Tomas Kaberle today to tell them there was nothing to the rumors, while he was spending time with his daughter’s family in Boston and Burke was less then thrilled with how he had to spend his down time….. It is Interesting that Doug MacLean, a former GM is behind this mess.

The Toronto Sun has run a story on the Burke denials:

“And about this request from the Lightning that Burke send defencemen Luke Schenn and Tomas Kaberle and the seventh pick in exchange for the second pick? ‘The concept is absurd,’ Burke said. ‘I have said so to Luke, and am trying to reach Kabba to tell him the same.’ ”

On the apparent email that got sent to MacLean from Burke (recall this from the article “Leafs general manager Brian Burke has confirmed to Sportsnet via e-mail that the Lightning have asked for Toronto defencemen Tomas Kaberle and Luke Schenn along with the team’s No. 7 pick in exchange for Tampa’s No. 2 selection. Burke also said in his e-mail to Sportsnet that Schenn is not going anywhere.”):

“Brian Burke went into quash mode on Tuesday. The Maple Leafs general manager shot down a rumour that he would send the Leafs’ seventh overall pick in the NHL entry draft next month to the Tampa Bay Lightning for the second pick overall and right winger Ryan Malone. The catch is Malone is under contract through the 2014-15 season at a salary cap hit of $4.5-million US for each of the next six years. ‘I have no comment,’ Burke said. ‘It certainly has not been discussed at our end.’”

Now does that sound like the words of someone who sent a “confirming email??????????

The Fan 590 is still running the rumour story..

More on this tomorrow I am sure.

Another useless article by Big Al. You don’t even have to read it to predict what is in it. Lets see, those who predicted attacking the league for a cap, you are correct. I mean the guy is sooooo smart he writes for who again? Oh yeah, no one. He is picked up by fox sports. The CBC is so desperate they continue to put him on the hotstove. One has to wonder what he pays the CBC to appear. His most recent article is yet another in the long series of the CAP is bad for fans…yadda yadda yadda. We know, AL move along…

Why raise it? Well Al speculates that the Cap will drop down to 45m in 2010-2011. He then tries to explain which teams are going to be in deep trouble for fact that they have too much money tied up in too few players;

“To the right is a list of some of the teams in precarious positions. The figures represent the amount of money, to the nearest million, that is already committed. The player number shows how many players are under contract for that year. Each team needs to have at least 23 players on its roster.”

Only one problem…the chart only contains 2 columns, the Team and the amount of money committed.

Missing Info?

So when Al says : “A team like the Rangers, therefore, will have about $9 million at its disposal to pay 16 players. Similarly, Philadelphia will have $3 million to pay 13 players.” It isn’t backed by ummmmm anything. At least he tried to do some homework.