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The Maple Leafs: A Dozen Games In
 Posted
11/2/2009 12:50:00 PM
One win. More than zero. Less than two. I feel like when I say "one win" with regard to the Maple Leafs, I'm saying it like Louis Winthorp III in Trading Places when Billy Ray Valentine tells him just how much currency changed hands between the nefarious and geriatric (and really how can old people NOT be both) Duke Brothers.
Suddenly, many are writing and crowing about "moral victories" and "three game point-streaks". It won't mean anything without wins, and not just any wins. REGULATION wins. This team can't afford to let points go for naught in their own division and their own conference. I will raise my hand as one that instead of seeing the team as a playoff squad, saw them finishing 11th in the Eastern Conference, but failing that, if everything broke their way -- there was certainly an opportunity to make the playoffs.
The amount of things I hadn't counted on for this team are remarkable through only a dozen games. But while I admit I'm wrong far more often than I am right, people who listen to the program know I haven't been a "Toskala guy" at any point since the Leafs acquired him. The trade was a vast and ludicrous overpayment to compensate by John Ferguson Jr., to make up for a vast and ludicrous overpayment of Tuukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft. Ask folks to bring up Toskala's greatest career accomplishment, and people point to a 3-4 week stretch in San Jose, when he was forced into the #1 spot with a great team in front of him when Evgeni Nabokov was banged up going into the playoffs.
Let me make it clear, there's no prior relationship between Ron Wilson and Vesa Toskala keeping him a Toronto Maple Leaf. Wilson and Burke know what he is, and they know what he isn't. If you truly believe in Vesa Toskala, you don't go out and recruit a world-class goalie like Jonas Gustavsson to come to Toronto and play 20 games as a back-up. You also don't let him go into the final year of his contract, with no whisper of a contract extension if you believe in him. Wilson, upon being asked by Burke, clearly made it obvious last season he didn't feel Toskala was up to snuff to take this team anywhere near the playoffs, and certainly not beyond the first round. I've documented, and did all summer, the factual evidence that Toskala lied point-blank to the trainers, his coaches, his general manager, regarding his health last season, and there is still bad blood as a result, and that certainly should be the case. How can they trust him? Especially in a throwaway season where the results weren't going to impact a potential playoff performance.
So I don't know what more to say on Vesa Toskala. He's not good enough. I know it. You know it. More importantly, Brian Burke and Ron Wilson know it. The skill level of Gustavsson and Toskala isn't even comparable. It simply isn't.
As for the rest of the squad which has won only one contest and not won eleven:
Ten observations.....
1. Rickard Wallin isn't an NHL player. He isn't. If he's here because Gustavsson insisted on it, I can understand a favour being made. There was also a reason Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley went to the LA Kings from Edmonton in August, 1988. Wayne Gretzky insisted on it. But Wallin was out of the NHL for six seasons, which is longer than most NHL careers. He was a marginal player when he played in the NHL, and he's even more marginal now. The fact that a 29-year old Wallin is taking up ice-time and a roster spot is inexplicable, given he isn't even signed for next year. Someone needs to explain this one to me.
2. If the team didn't explore trading Jamal Mayers in the off-season for ANYTHING, they simply should have.
3. If getting Calgary's 2nd round pick in the Wayne Primeau deal was the main impetus for acquiring Wayne Primeau, then I guess I understand it. But I'm not sure what his accomplishments have been so far besides plugging up minutes, and taking a roster spot and time away from Tyler Bozak, Christian Hanson, and Nikolai Kulemin.
4. Mike Komisarek will continue to improve and fit in better. I thought his play on back-to-back nights in Buffalo and Montreal was much improved from the first couple games of the season. He weathered early criticism and is ready to play a more significant role on this hockey club. I'd give him the captaincy immediately. Life's too short. There's no 'perfect" candidate for the "C" on this club. Komisarek is the best fit. This team needs its players speaking more with a "uniform voice". Komisarek can make that happen.
5. As for Phil Kessel, if he's even 70 percent ready to go, he should be playing. This team is running out of time. If they have designs on the post-season, they need to get to a level after 30 games where they have 30 points -- that's what I'd shoot for. If I was Ron Wilson, I'd post that figure all over the Maple Leafs dressing room...I don't care if the media sees it and pounces on it. Just having a goal of "playoffs" isn't enough. Math needs to be done and acknowledged. Get to "30 in 30" and then you'll need 64 points in the next 52 games. That's the equivalent (without OT and shootout points) of going 32-20 over the remainder of the season. Good luck, but you can't get there without "30 in 30". That means 24 points for the Leafs over the next 18 games. Without the bonus points...gotta go 12-6. It's the only way.
*** Now the return of the Retro Video of the day. Good Toronto boys right here -- and a band that encapsulated an era where a lot of acts like Eight Seconds and Pukka Orchestra were taking things Sting & The Police were doing and pilfering it slightly for their own innovative means. This was by far their biggest hit, and I even want to say that a beer company "aped" it because of how fresh and current it sounded at the time. Love it. It's a little pre-"Much Music Video Dance era", but dig on it, if you will.
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