Them!

Well, I've been trying to avoid a post about them.

I spent, what, 150 minutes of my life watching them last night. Wasted it. Kept notes on my wasting it on them -- the giveaways, the dumb penalties, the lack of punch.

So here it is, I'll keep it brief: Best moment of this one was captured on TV, Minnesota's Jacques Lemaire berating his star player on the bench. A couple of shifts later, and Marian Gaborik was going by one of them like he was tied to a post. Then Gaborik was scoring the goal of the night.

When was the last time the head coach of them got in the face of anyone? When was last time one of them was challenged to raise his game, and did just that?

Over at the Battle of Ontario, Meatriarchy points out that remarkabe consistency from them over this four-game losing spinout:

In the past four games of this losing skid the Leafs have scored first in every game. They have also had shorthanded goals in two of them. Usually scoring first or scoring a shorthanded goal is an indicator that you will win the game. Going into this four game slump the Leafs were 15-4 when scoring the first goal.

Scoring the first goal, scoring shorthanded -- it doesn't matter. But no matter what the hyperbole is from the TV people (and last night, they laid it on awful thick), it is still mid January, and almost half a season remains. It's not noose time. It is, however, Blah time, to steal another line from BoO.

Now we have two days of waiting before the latest round of the (lower-case) battle of Ontario, and a two-game set in Ottawa at that. This is the new NHL: an away-and-away.

Oh, and Jes Golbez has a nice one (including the comments) on the retiring Ziggy Palffy:

Palffy is known among the local Skalica residents to be extremely cocky and haughty, acting like a 'spoiled prince'. It doesn't help that tensions between Hungary and Slovakia (dating back to the Austrian-Hungarian empire) still run high and anyone with Hungarian noble heritage might be derided by natural Slovaks (This is more subconscious than anything). It wouldn't be uncommon to see a few beer bottles thrown at Ziggy when he returned home for the summer.

I remember being at a game in Los Angeles about a decade ago perhaps, and there was this little guy out there for the Islanders, skating circles around everyone. It was Palffy, just ready to break through. I'm with you Jes -- he was fun to watch.

So Palffy retires, another waste-of-time loss by them ... and Vancouver Canucks Op-Ed is ... gone. That's a triple decker bummer sandwich, friends.

(C.Y.)

Comments

[Fred]

Whats wrong with the Leafs lately? Damn.. last night's game was horrible. Carlo shouldn't be playing in the NHL yet.. he cost the leafs' the game with that bad give away for Minnesota's second goal, as well as his shot got blocked and led to the empty net goal by the Wild. The Leafs need to get Mccabe, Tucker, and Lindros back if they want to make the playoffs.

[Carla]

Here's a couple... Will prolly come up with some more over the weekend, seeing as I grew up with these sorts of films--watching them every Saturday afternoon with Sir Graves Ghastly (Detroit's version of Count Floyd).

THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (UK, 1962)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0054790/
Plot description by Netflix:
'Americans test a nuclear weapon at the Earth's South Pole at the exact moment the Soviets explode a device at the North Pole, jolting the earth's axis out of alignment and causing catastrophic changes in global weather patterns. To make matters even worse, the planet has been dislodged from its orbit and is now hurtling toward the sun. It's a race against time as a scientist brainstorms for ways to evade catastrophe.'

Plot manipulation by me:
'The rules for how a goaltender can handle the puck change at the same time the rules for how a defenceman can handle a forechecker change, jolting the Leafs' defence out of sorts and causing catastrophic changes in GAA, +/-, and PIMs. To make matters even worse, the heart of the team has been dislodged and moved south. It's a race against time as JFJr brainstorms for ways to evade the catastrophic possibility no post-season games at the ACC.'

THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (UK, 1955)(aka THE CREEPING UNKNOWN)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0049646/
A rocket returns to Earth with only a third of its original astronauts aboard. All that's left of those other two-thirds are empty space suits. The astronaut who has returned is but a shadow of himself--at times catatonic, at other times surly, and slowly metamorphosing into a great huge pile of goo.

Yeah. Sounds like the Leafs season so far, doesn't it?