Happy Turkey Day..

The Star is the contributor of the Maple Leaf Turkey article of the day, the author Rosie DiManno who clearly is the woman in sports that Mike Toth spoke of months before leaving the Fan and Sportsnet. (Toth by the way is officially gone from the Fan on a permanent basis). DiManno’s column is, in a word brutal. I have no problem with being critical of the Leafs, but at least make sense. They have offered up lots of ammunition to pick on them and she comes up with utter crap.

“Heretofore the difference between crap and craps: The first is played on ice, too many nights, by the Maple Leafs. The second is played with dice.”

Rosie then goes on, and on on the laws of probability. So if you want to bet on the coin flips or dice rolling, read on….

“A rolled dice always has a 1-chance-in-6 of flashing six pips, no matter how often it is thrown. A die doesn’t change it’s, um, spots.

Leaf shooters have been unable to change their luck either, regardless of how many shots they take in a game – like that club-record tying 61 in Monday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Islanders.

Now, clearly there are permutations, hockey-wise, because scoring opportunities have numerous variables. This is what makes it a game of skill and calculation rather than chance and finite odds. But the Leafs have been making a whole lot of journeymen goalies look like Dominik Hasek by shooting blanks or taking low-profit swipes at the puck on the theory that, eventually, some of them have to go in. Ain’t happening.”

No you see, here is where she goes offline. The problem with her theory is that despite odds, in sports there are these things called streaks. This is true in every sport. There are times where even the best of players go into slumps and there are times when the worst of players still tickle the twine, cause, well shit happens. Ask a goalie or a baseball batter about the times when the puck or ball looks either like a pea or a beach-ball. Is it mathematically explainable? Not really. It just happens. Does that mean Jason Blake is going to score 50 this year? No. Does it mean they will shoot at the same percentage all year- hell no! Does the baseball player who goes 5-5 on opening day with 2 homers mean he isn’t going to miss all year and score 2 every game?

“The Leafs, arguably, have just one pure goal scorer in Phil Kessel, who has been exactly as advertised. This was the dilemma in the Mats Sundin era, when so much of the offensive burden was borne by a single player, rarely with proficient play-making linemates.”

No shit dick tracey- this is news?

“”Snipers have a weird sense of where to go on the ice and they always find a way to score,” said Sundin, when we caught up with him on Wednesday, enjoying retirement in Stockholm.

“It’s a combination of natural skill and hard work. The best pure goal-scorer I ever saw was Alex Mogilny. Now, he was gifted, but he also worked hard on his shooting every day.”

Sundin cleaves to the keep-shooting mantra.

“At least you’re giving yourself a chance to score.”

Ok, so you talked to Mats….What is the point of this article???? What does anything that you have written have to do with flipping coins and rolling dice? The Leafs are putting forth an effort, and are at least playing a more competitive brand of hockey. Are they winning? No. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things that they are trying hard- not really. Effort only goes so far. The reality is this team is devoid of scoring talent. I don’t care how hard Mogilny worked- he had a gift; he was extremely talented. Wade Belak looked like he worked pretty hard too- he didn’t score like Mogilny did. Next time Rosie – have a point.

By the way, many people have asked the question, TSM reached Brian Burke this evening and was told that the Maple Leafs self imposed holiday transaction freeze kicks in on December 9th.

TSM @yyzsportsmedia

Rosie is here

Lanny McDonald was on the Fan morning show this am, which I could listen to because I can no longer talk/text or email on my wireless device (i would recommend shorting stock in Telus and buying Rogers stock from my use alone) and he was talking about, amongst other things, his time with the Colorado Rockies. McDonald was talking about having to play from slumps and how respected Don Cherry was as a coach/motivator (not the most technically savvy coach but a great motivator). So of course the fellas asked about the current state of the Toronto Maple Leafs and McDonald made a very analogy, however I don’t think he intended to do so,he said that with with the team in Colorado they simply didn’t have enough guys who could really play the game. He also said how difficult it was to play the game come November 1st when you are already in essence eliminated from the playoff race.

It got me thinking, in lieu of my post late last night about the reasons this team is failing. Brian Burke is quoted in numerous papers today as saying that all 8 of their offseason player acquisitions have gone south. To which I say that he is in fact correct. Not one is playing with any degree of competency. You know your team is in trouble when Ian White is your best player night in and night out. That’s no knock on Ian White by the way. The result by the way is that the entire franchise, save for those named Vesa and Joey are hanging their hopes on a guy named Jonas and no, not the guy from 640 Toronto! How scary that we are at October 26th and the only prayer we have right now is a rookie goalie who has, for all intents and purposes not accomplished anything in the NHL. What pres tell happens if he gets shelled tonight?

Lanny has reinforced my belief that this team just doesn’t have the horses. They will win some games, but man the building of this team has a LONG way to go….

@yyzsportsmedia