What team is this

Leafs are in Boston tonight, looking to extend themselves to a third successive win.

This is a little more than your garden-variety November night on the schedule. It's a division game, for one thing, but also more importantly, they've been icing their most complete and excuse-free lineup of late, making some conclusions into focus. Finally, observers can judge something that's been up for debate since the beginning of the season -- just what's the identity of this team, anyway?

This argument can be contrived -- I mean, in a 30-team league where talent is spread so thin, some are just crap and you leave it at that -- but any group with playoff aspirations gets some kind of shorthand attached to them that sums up what they're about. Big team, grinding team, speed team, finesse team, veteran team, young team -- that kind of thing. So I want to know -- what are these Leafs? C'mon, not everyone at once. Lance Hornby at the Sun touched on it today, so can you.

Some links for you (and sorry for being so late with this, but you know what happens with these computers sometimes. More to the point, you know what happens to me with computers sometimes. We just don't get along):

Ken Campbell, on a reconnaissance mission in Boston, finds the Bruins "hungry, motivated and irritable."  Which sounds a little (and only a little, maybe just the hungry part) like, well, this guy. (Thanks to a pair of essentials, Vancouver Canucks Op-Ed and James Mirtle, for the tip).

Everybody's in denial -- the state, not the comments guy, although I'm sure he'll pop up soon -- about ongoing reports of friction between the triangle of Allison, Quinn and JFJ: "In Toronto, these are the stories you hear here. What happened and what was reported are two different things." (Ed. note -- *Yawn*).

Rosie DiManno looks at Tomas Kaberle, content with his role as Bryan McCabe's server.

(C.Y.)

Comments

[Gary]

My C.Y. this is indeed a very good question. Just who are these guys? Last year with Roberts, Mogilny and Niewy (taking the easy way out with the spelling again ) in my mind at least they were a character team, good dressing room and lots of heart. Veteran skilled guys on the downside but with just enough skill and heart to maybe get them past both Ottawa and Philly. They only got halfway.
This year we see some skilled veteran guys like O'Neill, Allison and Lindros, not as old but seemingly lacking in cohesiveness and in Allison's case at least complaining about ice time.(that's the downside of incentive laden contracts).
We also see two rookies in Steen and Wellwood with offensive upside and speed, Stajan playing well and Kronwall not looking out of place. These are all good things with Colaicovvo and Jeremy Williams waiting in the wings.
Hopefully Quinn can mesh all of these components together and create an identity. My gut feel is this team will be OK when they get it together defensively. The Ranger game was a good start and I think when all is said and done this will be regarded as a skilled team, slower than most, but with enough size to do some very good things when the real hockey starts in April, if they make it.

[NR]

I agree this team will come out of the lack of identity shadow soon enough. But this can't be done until we pick up a few missing pieces of the puzzle and start defining roles. We've got talent, we've got size, we've got a good mix of young and old we just haven't quite figured out where everyone fits in. It's largely a new team between the trades, F.A. and new youngsters coming in and seeing the true character players running / skating out the door. Roberts has to be regretting his move down south, apparently O.J. is no replacement for his super man shakes! And what was that about wanting to play with Nieuwendyk - how many days do you stop qualifying for day-to-day and call it a day? Maybe Florida wouldn't mind dumping roberts for a low draft pick, giving him the opportunity to revive what's left of his career in Toronto. He'd look great on Allison's wing right now. Regardless, I think we need to redefine our lines based on job responsibilities and not on who wants to be center. Suggestions for Quinn:

1st Line - Goal Scoring Line - Possible Line Combo - Steen-Sundin-O'Neill

2nd Line - Another Goal Scoring Line in case the first one is getting shut down - Line Combo - Allison-Lindros-Stajan (switch up the centers from time to time to see what works best).

3rd Line - Defensive Specialists - This is where we need Marchant - What's Columbus thinking with dumping him? Seriously salary cap or not, there has to be someone else - whatever - hopefully their loss is our gain! Line Combo - Tucker-Wilm-Kilger (Marchant would be great at center on this line if we could get him). The focus is defense, defense, defense - forget scoring - just shut down the other team's top line!

4th Line - Keep the puck out of our end - whatever it takes - crash, bang, dump - whatever, don't focus on scoring, just get it out - don't look for the break out pass - just get it out - don't try and be a hero - just get it out. Combo - Poni-Wellwood-Domi (get Marchant and replace Poni with Wilm and you've got a great line that may get some fluky goals). Both Wilm and Wellwood are talented with the puck and will be able to keep it out of their zone.

Poni and a low pick for Marchant is a pretty good deal. Salary dump for Columbus and a change of environment for Poni will be good for both teams. Trade Antropov and Belak to another team for a defenseman - maybe Poti?

[The Oodler]

NR - Under the current CBA, the salary cap restrictions does not allow the Leafs to pick up Roberts (if indeed FLA wants to get rid of him), Marchant (he's way, way, way overpaid in todays marketplace - MacLean must be banging his head against the wall saying D'oh repeatedly over that signing - probably nobody will touch him), or Poti (as much as I like his potential, he's really stagnated in NY - he didn't live up to his potential in EDM either - hmmm).

It's great to say "Hey! This guys available - let's go get him!", but with less than $2mill left under the cap, JFJ will be stuck with cheaper talent, or as so eloquently put a few days ago: "My crap for your crap"

I would suggest everybody gets used to the team we see on the ice now, cause it's probably going to be the team we see at the end of the season - whenever that may be.

As an aside, I'm a teacher and I get a lot of flack about the pension board only wanting to turn a profit and not caring about winning. From a financial standpoint, especially under the cap system, it's wiser to have a team that goes DEEP into the playoffs, especially with home-ice advatage, as every home playoff game is FREE MONEY! Salaries are not payed during the playoffs apart from relatively small bonuses in some cases, and MSE owns the arena so all the concessions, parking and really over-priced tickets are pretty much profit.

I am happy to own the 4th eyelet of Tie Domi's left skate and I'm sure the managers of the Teacher's Pension Board want the Leafs to succeed on the ice, as well as off the ice, if only from a financial standpoint. If they didn't, why did they allow Quinn to overpay for mediocre talent for numerous years?

Go Leafs Go (an I mean that in many ways... I can't wait for retirement!)

[cy]

Okay, Oodler. How much you want for half that eyelet to Tie Domi's skate?