z_The Hockey Page - Toronto Star

How the streak ended

Bring on the marching band! Doug Weight's on the move and the Leafs win.
And here's something different. Not exactly a live blog, but some live notes off the latter 'cause I'm just so excited. Well, not really, but it sure beats another set of They-Suck headlines. This doesn't happen every day, y'know. As my old friend River once said after putting another $100 on whoever was playing the Arizona Cardinals, "a streak can go on forever, but it ends only once." He ended up a rich man, that River. For a while, anyway.

First period
… Good: With Leafs shorthanded, nice rush by Poni and back pass to Antropov, it stays out but Luongo doesn’t know how
TORONTO 1-0 Some good work, Kilger banging in a rebound off a Harrison shot from the point, Kilger holding off Bouwmeister for the goal.
Bad: About the Cialis ad… The couple come in late for the opera, and it’s gangway all the way. Well to do, dressed like Ward and June Cleaver heading out for the Platinum Club, heavy on the lip gloss and the arched eyebrows, a big date and this ain't exactly Lavalife. But really. If you're gonna take this stuff, do you really want to go to the opera? Talk about killing the mood.
Ugly: Right after comes this from Joe B:

AP PHOTO

Steady...

“Belfour made a heck of a knob save" and after some mumbled elbow-in-the-ribs double entendre from Harry, Joe chuckles: "it was just a physical part”. btw, speaking of inane, bloggin' pal Jlo has a bone to pick with the Satellite Hot Stove, which is immensely heartening given all the attention to Cherry and MacLean and so little to this sad, yapping puppy of an intermission feature.
Bad: I’ve been instantly tired of the self-referential Molson ad, with its internally ironic dynamic and its whiney, male indie-folkie singer. Bring back Juliette, I say, irony is so 1980s.
Bad, But Maybe It’s Just Me: The graphic that shows Nieuwendyk ahead of Rocket Richard in goals scored. Richard played in an era of shorter seasons, so goals per game is a more relevant, telling stat (Check out Richard here, and Nieuwy here). Harrumph.

Second period
Good and bad: Leafs kill off a 2-man advantage for 1+ minute, then the rest, then Antropov takes a dumb penalty for interference, adding another two minutes on the PK and they get thru it all.
Bad: Khavanov hasn't come back. Another D-man down, perhaps.
Good: In the last few games, during this bad spell, Wellwood has been getting a little more aggressive. Looking forward to seeing him in a couple of years time. He will be an all-star, and in a different, earlier Leafs era, end up in another uniform. On this play, he is stopped by Luongo after some shifty stuff inside Fla. end and behind net.
Just asking: Why does Joe B invariably refer to the sideline guy doing the donkey work at ice-level as “our intrepid reporter”? He’s paid by the team’s house TV propaganda arm, and usually has about one, maybe two things to do in an entire game. He's about as intrepid as Ed McMahon.
Good: Belfour’s been quite sharp, covering up on rebounds and not leaving any holes open. I hesitate to make this comment, though, for obvious reasons.
Bad: goaltender interference call on Kolnik is just brutal, leads to 4-on-4 stretch and eventually a Leafs PP featuring the utterly useless Jeff O’Neill.
TORONTO 2-0 Well what did I tell ya! Wellwood grabs a carom that comes out in front of the net, gets a shot stopped in front then sweeps in the rebound.
Bad: Right after, a real cheesy dive by Florida’s Kwiatkowski leads to Stajan tripping penalty. Right after that, another Leafs penalty and it’s a 5-on-3.
FLORIDA 1-2 Jokinen really wants to shoot from the point but Kilger is covering him off, finally wrists one and it seems to trickle through Belfour on the same line as the  single-bullet theory. Stumpel gets credit but it looked like it was already in. No matter. Only good thing is Stajan had just come back so the two-man and the one-man disadvantage are over.

Third period
Bad: Khavanov out with injury – Leafs are running out of defencemen .
Bad: Leafs on 2-man advantage early, O’Neill stopped point blank on rebound.
TORONTO 3-1 Tucker (who else?) buries it from right side of net (where else?) at a tight angle, wrists it after an Allison pass across that might have been a shot (PP)
Bad, then good: Uh-oh, Tucker takes a high stick in the head, maybe his chin, which is perhaps the only spot on his body that doesn’t have a welt or a scar this season. He’s okay, it looks like; Panthers take a 4-minute minor, he’s cut.
Gratton penalty near end of this PP leads to 5-on-3 for Leafs
TORONTO 4-1 O’Neill (holy cow! I'll leave him alone now) pass across goes in off Bouwmeister’s stick or skate (PP)
FLORIDA 2-4

AP PHOTO

The good: Tucker goal, Allison feed. Even O'Neill shows up later.

Nieuwendyk eludes Klee and Wilm’s limp one-handed stick-check as he circles off boards, rips in a wrister that moves him further up the cheezy scoring ladder with 6+ minutes to go. Panthers don’t have much flair, but they can cycle the puck and Nieuwy can still shoot it.
Bad: Luongo stops Allison on a play where Antropov probably should have shot the puck Bad, but for a second I confess I (shame on me) thought it might be good: Belfour levelled into boards behind goal by Nieuwendyk, he’s on queer street for a moment but gets back into net. I must confess, the thought of him missing a few games crossed my mind. So sue me.
Good: Fla. penalty on the play, which means they’ll be shorthanded with 2:11 left,  a really dumb penalty to take and who do the Panthers think they are, Jeff O’Neill?
Finally: Leafs 4, Florida 2 – The streak is over, everything is fine. A good effort, especially from Belfour in goal and the defence, down to three AHLers and Kaberle and Klee for two periods. Three power-play goals, including one from O'Neill -- perhaps he should just not try to shoot from now on. McCabe back tomorrow night, it can only help.
(C.Y.)

 

What we need is an election

The blog is back. For now, anyway. The Leafs, not so sure about them.

Damien Cox is asking the question this morning, what's it take to fire a Leaf?

CP PHOTO

Ed Belfour: Gets the hook, 83 minutes late.

The comments box is open for the punchline, in the meantime here's a sample of his take:

The hockey team, with 24 victories against 25 defeats (three by shootout) this season, is awash in excuses and clichés and a near-total absence of player accountability, not surprising since even multiple errors or giveaways rarely result in a benching.

Eighty-three minutes late, Ed Belfour got the bench last night after giving up four goals in 23 minutes. Belfour's overwrought reaction after the Sabres' first goal, a flukey one in off the skate of Allison, was the first clue that Eddy might be feeling a tad tired and emotional. The needless penalty he took right after was the next -- Glenn Healy noted all this on the broadcast quite nicely, and it became a theme of the night. From that penalty on, the remainder of the game, with the Leafs' normal AHL-level defence sinking even lower, had the feel of watching the same horror films we've grown used to these past three weeks. Whenever the Leafs got back to within spitting distance of Buffalo, their defence broke down completely.

You have to go a long way back for the most miserable January in MLSE annals -- all the way to last year, in fact. Instead of a lockout, there's this seven-game losing streak and the usual media firestorm. Instead of trading away their cornerstone malcontent and $10 million for a bag of beads, the Raptors have dropped five of their last six and yesterday fired basketball GM Rob Babcock. Neither of their teams play anything resembling defence and there are systemic problems in the overall organization -- I'd say the two are related, defence being predicated on effort and tenacity, and this MLSE defined by complacency and insulated by the lack of a serious alternative. MLSE is the sporting equivalent of the federal Liberals -- tired, out of ideas, riven by infighting, dedicated mostly to the preservation of its power and in dire need of a kick in the ass -- but alas, there are no elections in pro sports.

But there I go, piling on when times are bad. The Leafs are right where most of us thought they'd be. It's a pretty ugly sight, but it's also no surprise. As for Damien's central argument of firing Pat Quinn? It's not the right time. The only case in which I'd see that working is if it was accompanied by a trade(s) of Belfour, or Sundin, or Allison, or one of the Leafs' supposed veteran mainstays at the trade deadline, in exchange for player(s) that will help them in the future -- in other words, if they give up on this season, a decision that they will have to make pretty soon if they keep at this level, just below the playoff grid. Then you give the team to Maurice -- heck, he's going to get the call this summer anyway.

All of that is contingent on MLSE actually giving a damn.

Some other links:

Up in Muskoka, it's a pond hockey tournament. (Far as I know, no one's been fired yet.)

Eric Lindros and the Rangers are haggling over $1 million. 

Darcy Tucker will try contact drills today, and may return tomorrow against Montreal.

(C.Y.)

No surprise here

We're back with our regularly scheduled programming (in a sling, but hey) . . . and so are the Leafs. They're so predictable, last night's 4-3 loss in Ottawa keeping them in ninth place in the conference. 

I'm with recent commenter Gary: Why is anyone surprised? The Leafs are right where many neutrals figured they would be. They have handled earlier injuries to alleged main hands Sundin, Lindros and Allison quite well. Tucker and McCabe, though, have been a different story -- take away these two, easily their best players this season, and the wheels have fallen off (Leafs record this season without McCabe: 0-6; without Tucker: 1-6).

As for Pat Quinn, who doesn't deserve to be replaced until the end of the season (that's what Hockey Dirt is saying, too), my only question from last night was why he sent out Belfour again. If ever there was a situation that called for a reliever, this was it. (As for a trade, like that Allison for Leetch one the Star keeps floating, isn't that precisely the kind of deal for an aging part this team used to make, and should stay away from now?)

Oh, and that Carla -- she started this whole "Leafs season as a sci-fi movie" thing, and she's finishing it. Here's her winning entry. I'll shoot a prize off her way just as soon as I figure out what it is, and when I can flap this sore shoulder of mine:

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?

It sure does.

And finally, this is good news indeed: Vancouver Canucks Op Ed is back, yay.

Monster Sci-Fi Chiller Horror Theatre

Regular visitor Carla is a smart woman. You have to be smart to survive in Salt Lake City, I guess, with no big-league hockey and a Jazz team whose big man tops the NBA's most-likely-to-wax-his-back-and-dunk list.

This Leafs season has turned even scarier than a Count Floyd reunion

Anyway, Carla immediately picked up on yesterday's title: Them! I recall watching it on Channel 29's Saturday afternoon movie, James Whitmore battling giant spiders ants who were coming out of the desert to run amok, terrorizing the locals by smoking cigarettes, wearing leather jackets and gunning their Harleys.
Perhaps my memory is a tad muddled. But she got me to thinking, as this highway to hell continues for the Leafs, straight into two in Ottawa, and a federal election: What classic Sci-Fi movie does this Leafs season remind you of?
A few candidates:
Them!: Whitmore's bug-eyed "get away before it's too late" closing speech, a 1950s sci-fi staple, is eerily reminiscent of a pregame Sportsnet panel warning that Belfour is starting in goal.
Alien: A little Ballard pops out of the egg, and grows up to be the anti-ET that turns the fortunes of an entire spaceship for the worse.
Night of the Living Dead: Thousands of Nik Antropovs awake and terrorize the earth.
The Matrix: Alex Ovechkin as Neo, the Leafs as all those creepy dudes trying to get him.
Back to the Future: Every season the Leafs have had for the past 38 years.

What with trade rumours, a jinx blogger, former Leafs failing drug tests, Spezza's return to the Ottawa lineup, continuing injury woes and on and on clouding the Leafs picture, I'm sure others will come to mind.

A prize to the best Sci-Fi movie/Leafs season comparison! I'll keep this open all weekend. Heck, it's a lot more fun than counting down to the election, and the Sens.

(C.Y.)

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.)

Rough road ahead

Over the past week or so, the in-and-out performances of the Maple Leafs have led me to make a couple of conclusions -- always a bad idea, I know, given just a couple of games, but I feel I must, Saturday night's laydown at home against Gretzky's Coyotes the one that really frosted my pumpkin:

BERNARD WEIL/CP

Darcy Tucker: Man, the Leafs miss his bite.

1 Back when the season was but a gleam in the eye and this here space was just a bouncing baby blog, Darcy Tucker talked about taking a greater offensive role this season, and he surely has, with a team-best 18 goals. But with his absence against the Coyotes, it's clear he has grown in other ways. The guy's played hurt, taken all kinds of shots and kept getting up. He has clearly outgrown the spit-disturber image he carries around. And without him, there's a whole lot of salt and pepper missing out there, which is a lot more than you can say about Mats Sundin, who has yet to return to his usual form (I guess the next move for him is to throw away the visor, thus reigniting that old debate). Tucker has looked more like the blood-and-guts leader of this team than anyone else.

2 I've avoided so far jumping on the Bryan McCabe bandwagon. But having seen the Leafs without him now for a week, he's a lot more important to the overall success of this team than I had given him credit. That might seem obvious. But it wasn't to me, McCabe's giveaways and defensive zone miscues mitigating the offensive prowess and power play results. The ripple effect down through the Leafs defence corps with McCabe out has resulted in more loose defensive zone coverage than we've seen since back in the early season.

Up until now, the Leafs have seemed fine to me as they negotiated their way through the injuries that are part and parcel of a long pro season -- but with these latest two out in Tucker and McCabe, they appear to be very vulnerable in terms of grit and defence. Couple their absence with a couple of road trips coming up over the next three weeks, and this could be a very bumpy patch ahead.

Some other links from this delightful Planet Blog we live in, as we head into a new week:

James Mirtle has put together an up to date list of hockey blogs -- which is where I found out that Ninja, a regular visitor to these parts, has a new Leafs blog that deserves a regular look-in.

With the Habs going bad the Claude Julien firing was no surprise, says Jeff J at Sisu Hockey.

The Sports Frog notes that the NHL on OLN in the U.S. reaches 214 households in Los Angeles. I'm kind of tired of hearing these kind of numbers, but on a weekend where NBC began its coverage of the NHL, I guess it's going to happen. (And I'd guess further that the figures are pretty similar to what the Raptors draw in Calgary, say.)

And don't look now, but Peter Puck may well be coming out of retirement. Thanks to Eric McErlain for the link, and that reminds me -- I'll be back later today with a post on last week's Mikey Milbury contest, and some prizes to give out.

(C.Y.)

Hey, the Leafs are back

Leafs ended their west coast trip with a loss last night in Vancouver -- at least they outshot the Canucks in a game in which both sides looked less than inspiring.

Leafs obviously missed McCabe, the defence and the power play jittery and out of sorts most of the way -- over at the Battle of Ontario, Meatriarchy figures this night made a case for McCabe as a Hart Trophy candidate -- the PP did click finally in the third, after barely managing a shot in half a dozen previous chances.

Jeff Goode/Toronto Star

Carlo looking like ol' No. 24, shown here with Carl Brewer.

Some questions and random notes about this bunch, with the schedule dark until Saturday when Gretzky's Coyotes come to the ACC, while the home PC goes to the great Pentium in the sky and this page is tickin' overs slowly, slowly:

Yes, Kronwall had a very poor game, including one howler of a giveaway that led to a Vancouver goal, and no one filled the rather large skates of Mr. McCabe, but let's not throw all these defensive babies out with the bath water. Colaiacovo's open-ice hip check on Bertuzzi was an old-school thumper, a thing of beauty like something out of a Brian Glennie time capsule. Surely Carlo is here to stay. Surely he HAS to stay. As for Kronwall, he's beginning to show his inexperience after some fine work earlier in the season, and I guess when McCabe comes back he is the odd man out.

Ten points and a blue and white air kiss to anyone who can tell me what Tie Domi has done lately. I know the Leafs have injury issues. And I'm no huge Marius Czerkawski fan, but surely he deserves time on the struggling No. 1 line ahead of Domi, who blew another great chance in front and missed some shifts last night after going heavily into the boards but returned to inactive duty.

And this means not much, 'cause these two are nowhere near the worst team around. But can the duo of Joe Bowen and Harry Neale date themselves any worse than by name-checking Fred Biletnikoff? The constant Sinatra references I can handle, 'cause pretty much everyone knows the late, original gangsta popster and he's gained universal icon status. But this other dude retired 25 years ago.

Couple of other lunchtime links:

Jes Golbez has the keenly anticipated Armenian Update.

Hockey Pundits has some comment off a link to an ESPN article on the Kovalchuk-Crosby feud, and how it's good for the NHL.

(C.Y.)

Check out my six-pack

Six straight and a-happynewyear. Pretty good, huh? Where are the Senators when you need them?

Leafs dump Sidney Crosby's Penguins last night in a good one. Shoulda beat Sidney Crosby's Penguins long before the OT kicked in, but Jocelyn Thibeault (all I've heard this year is how he hasn't been able to stop a beachball) was pretty excellent in the Sidney Crosby's Penguins net.

"Toronto was much better than us," said Mark Recchi. "We were fortunate to get a point."

True that. Not that we shouldn't expect this. Of the six wins: 2 against Sidney Crosby's Penguins, 2 over just-as-pathetic New Jersey, one over Boston and the only real test was the shootout victory against Buffalo. Next week will be a different story with the trip out west and games in Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton. Those teams can really skate.

McCabe has 15 goals now, just one of those coming off his chest by my count, and we have ourselves a white-and-blue hot hockey team. Streak lifts them out of the 7th-8th place danger zone, tied with Rangers for 5th overall in the East. The injury angle is still odd and interesting as the Leafs keep sucking it up and winning. For details on Darcy Tucker going down last night and possible returns of other limping Leafs, read Paul Hunter.

Before we do Crosby, a shout out to Chad Kilger and two goals from the man with the big helmet. Have to admit, I wondered why Quinn claimed him off waivers in 2004 (why do they need another forward who doesn't score?) but he's been very good in his "role".

Read any paper for all the details on the NHL's darling rookie. He did deliver -- how 'bout the behind the back pass for Gonchar's goal? Nice. Damien Cox was watching and wondering why Shane Endicott got more shifts than Sid the Kid.

Leafs off 'till Friday but we get Chris back in this space tomorrow. We've got a couple things planned to get us through the week, including our hockeydirt.com mid-season awards. Oh, and I thought of asking this question after Harry Neale told us last night that Tie Domi was playing his 739th game as a Leaf, tying him with Bob Baun. Is Domi a Maple Leafs legend? (SW)

Leafs vs. the kids

Leafs welcome Sabres tonight at ACC. And though we've known this for a while now, we still do a double take at the standings: with 51 points Buffalo is the fourth seed in the East, and just four points behind Ottawa for tops overall.

Buffalo is 15-1-1 over their last 17; goalie Martin Biron has won 13 straight starts. Leafs fans who cry for the youth movement should look down the QEW for their model. Afinogenov, Briere, Connolly, Kotalik, Vanek, Drury, Campbell, Roy (I could go on) -- all under 30 years of age, all have the wheels and the skills. Not feeling good about tonight's game. But that's fine because I don't get Leafs TV and that's the only place you can watch it, so tonight's a good night to check out our 2-0 junior squad, facing Norway tonight in what should be a scrimmage for our boys.

Paul Hunter takes us through the Leafs infirmary ward, with Steen, Colaiacovo, Lindros, Allison and Antropov hurting. Hunter reports Steen could be back and Wozniewski will replace Colaiacovo.

Gotta say the way Steady Eddie's been playing the Leafs have a chance against anyone. But I have to ask:

What's up with Mats Sundin's linemates?
What happened to Jeff O'Neill? 9 ppg and he's no longer on the first unit?
Could Matt Stajan be the next top two-way specialist?
Should Kyle Wellwood be playing more? With Sundin?
Should Darcy Tucker have been suspended?

Bonus coverage: Damien Cox debuts a new web-only column today on waymoresports, with the news that the Devils could have Patrik Elias back in their lineup in time for Saturday's date with Toronto, thanks to some clever moves by GM Lou Lamoriello. It's a neat read just to see how he worked his roster and the cap to make things fit. (SW)

Ola Raptors

It's official. The Raptors are a hotter team than the Maple Leafs (except Mariusz Czerkawski).

I've decided to truly dedicate this space to the Leafs this week and next. That is, sometimes I'll show up and do a post, sometimes I'll take the day off. Sometimes I'll give a great effort, sometimes not. Maybe next time I'll write a few graphs in Spanish. It just seems appropriate.

"Any time your not typing up to your abilities, you're not going to have a good post," says guy sitting at computer.

Paul Hunter has the excuses story game story.

Tonight is the holiday version of Hockey Night in Canada and again the recommended game is the late one - Flames and Canucks - west coast almost guaranteed to be good hockey. Maybe the Leafs will bounce back at home and crush the Bruins, maybe I'll have a 7 am posting for this blog (okay, that's not likely). I just don't know anymore.

Have a great weekend, happy holiday-of-your-choice. (SW)