Game 44: Sleepy Hollow

If nothing else, give the Leafs credit for tonight's unprecedented game plan.

Hey, any team can win by storming out of the gate, skating and hitting, passing and shooting. Any team can win with energy, focus and desire.

But what the Leafs did tonight, now that was truly special. These pioneers attempted to win a game by lulling the entire Western hemisphere into a coma. They tried to win by bumping into each other, not shooting, giving away the puck, not skating, hugging each other on the bench, not passing, staring into space, not defending and leaving their veteran goalie pretty much on his own.

These hockey innovators tried to win by actually not trying to win.

If you missed the first 58 minutes of this grim snoozefest, you actually didn't. But if you're determined to replicate the excitement of those first 58 minutes, you could always break into a Madame Tussauds museum after closing and strike up a conversation with a wax statue of Lyndon B. Johnson while nibbling on a slice of construction paper.

Oh, and don't forget to punch yourself in the face.

It was Marcel Mueller's first NHL game. But Marcel Marceau could've done the play-by-play tonight given how little there was to call.

Yes, Mikhail Grabovski tied the game with 13 seconds left in the third to salvage a point before the S.S. Slumber glugged down in choppy seas. And, yes, the Leafs were forced to kill a questionable penalty in overtime. And, also yes, we already know this team will never be featured in a future book titled The Idiot’s Guide To Winning An NHL Shootout.

But despite this burst of late-game energy – this coda to the coma, if you will – the Leafs simply wasted a chance to creep up in the standings by not getting serious about winning until it was almost over.

Six shots in the first? Really? Six shots in the second? No... really?

It was as if the dazzling road trip was suddenly a false memory. It was as if the Leafs were trying to remind us of something: They will not hesitate to slash giant holes into our souls just when it looks like they've lowered their knives.

I mean, this thing nearly ended as a 1-0 Calgary road shutout victory with Matt Stajan scoring the only goal. As unlikely events go, that's the final score equivalent of getting hit twice by lightning after splitting an order of suicide wings with Noam Chomsky at Hooters.

I don't know. You know? I just don't know.

This is one of those nights in which I feel sorry for us, for Leafs Nation. We should not be losing all feeling in our extremities watching this utter Crappy McCrap on a Saturday night. We should not be glancing at the out-of-town scores in mid-January, our fingers crossed with hope, our eyes crossed with tedium.

There was a "Go Leafs Go" chant sometime in the second period that almost made me weep. So few people were participating. You could actually hear their individual voices. Seriously. It was like a "Go Leafs Go" chant as performed by the saddest barbershop quartet in the world.

I guess the question is, "Now what?" Does this team get back on track? Or do we now spend another couple of weeks in the forest at night, ducking reality as the Headless Horseman gallops past?

What a game. So sleepy, so hollow. Such an absurd waste.

Comments

[KWood19]

Far too true about how boring the game was. I stopped watching midway through the second period to watch an episode of the office off of my computer... much more entertaining. thank goodness I watched the last five minutes of the game.

On a positive note, Giggy looked good for a guy who hadn't played in a month. And seriously, do Garbo and Kessel have some scoring competition between themselves that no one knows about? I swear when one of them scores, the other one usually scores the same night or the next one. ah well, no one knows. except for them, those sneaky sneaky guys

[waffles2010]

Well, Well. Glad I checked back in before heading upstairs. There was no rush as I'm sure my better half would have turned towards the window if I had. Since I had some me time, I gathered the PVR remote and its shrapnel, the glue and the black electrical tape, and began surgery.
All in all I am pretty pleased with the final results. Except for the tape holding the battery cover in place, and a big crack glued together, only a very small triangular piece of plastic is M.I.A. It actually still works.
Hey Moe, welcome to the I hate Kaberle club. I hope he does well somewhere else, I can' t watch him anymore. Kneeling in the crease, the only place the Flames can't go, while Matt (3 goals) Stajan goes to the front of the net and whacks in a rebound was unforgivable. Change the scenery please.
Good Night Leafs nation, please don't send me your broken remotes. My luck has probably run out.

[lifewithbunty]

Man! A sleepy game, and a sleepy blog comments section tonight...

Good comeback from Grabovski late in the 3rd! And he was so close to getting another pretty shootout goal!

I must say the 2nd shootout goal by Calgary (Alex Tanguay) looked rather suspect. It could have turned out to be a much happier night....

Oh well, on to the Rangers next!

p.s: Thanks VM for doing this blog. Very refreshing to see you on the Star's Sports section! I hope you would consider doing this even after this season is over?

[Crippler]

If the team is going to keep playing like that they may need to install suicide hotlines on the bench....

[Sensi-Bill]

Great job VM on fashioning an interesting column on a totally non-interesting game.
With my background of 30+ years in journalism, I know how much work and talent is involved in making a difficult task seem deceptively easy. I once again doff my hat --- hockey helmet? --- to you in admiration and appreciation.

[Ken Chevis]

The game that your heroes played reminds me of a story that has been making the rounds. It seems that this guy parked his car in a lot in downtown Toronto and when he returned he was really ticked off because someone had broken into his car........and left a pair of Leaf tickets on the dash.

[Account Deleted]

The bad news is the Leafs.The good news is the blog is back at losing streak hilarious.Where else can you get references to Marcel Marceau,Lyndon Johnson and Noam Chomsky?Thanks VM!

[Robert]

Waffles, Kaberle was kneeling in the crease because Schenn had gone into the corner on Kaberle's side of the ice, chasing something only Schenn knows what, leaving the front of the net undefended. Kaberle was covering two people, went down to try and block the puck. The high scoring Stajan just jammed it home.
Actually, Jiggy should have smothered the damn thing. RATS!

[Robert]

I forgot, brilliant column Vinnie. Don't know where you get it, but your humour is spot on. (Unfortunately)

[oakville_girl]

Why was Carlton the Bear wearing a Team Canada shirt? Is he too embarrassed to wear the blue and white?

What a snore fest that was last night.

Remember the pact I made to not watch the games so that they would win, and then it changed that I had to watch the games so they would win? I was given a new TV by a Habs fan. Last night was the first game I watched on the new set. Should I continue to watch the games on this TV, or go back to watching on the set that was blurry, our of focus and hard to hear? Actually, I think I answered my own question. Last nights game would have been better to watch blurry, out of focus and hard to hear.

[leafland'r]

Positive ( for Nik).....at least a guy from across the big pond gave a high five to a polar bear wearing a Team Canada sweater. Further, if you stayed with the game 'til the end you may have had a moment of holding your breath in the last minute. Yet, admittedly, it did exhale like a flapping balloon with the last shot in the SO.

[Ken Baumgartner]

They really needed that extra point last night. Losses to the Calgary's of the world are wasted opportunities they cannot afford to have. Getting one point moves the team closer but if this team is ever going to improve these are the games they have to have. Is this one of those games where you have to learn to lose together before you can learn to win? Well it should have been a game where they learn to win together. Gutting out a win last night would have been like putting jet fuel in the engine. Instead what happened is they mixed the jet fuel with deisel fuel only sputter past the finish line. I will take the point but if this team is going to grow they need to grow past the 23rd place Calgary Flames and picking themselves up off the matt after Pheonix would have been a real step in the right direction.

[moe green]

I don't know how you can spin such an entertaining blog out of such a game. Of course, you've had to do it time and time again so I guess practice makes perfect. Regardless, you are the master and I salute you.

[Alecia]

I am going to wait to judge this after they are rested and play on Wednesday. Then we might get a true sense of what team we will be getting in the 2nd half of the season. Last night game is so hard to judge cause it was so..., well, boring.

Still faithful... will re-evaluate on Wednesday.

[moe]

I was watching the bench last night and I swear the players' expressions told me that they thought they played a pretty good game. I kid you not. That is a coach's problem. No excuses for a team being that delusional. Is Wilson that delusional too?

[Sensi-Bill]

Speaking of Carlton . . .
First off, what kind of name is Carlton, anyway? OK, I guess, for a sit-com doorman we never see on camera. But for a mascot representing a team?
Oops. Maybe a boring old name is appropriate, after all.
Still . . .
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't mascots supposed to be at least a bit entertaining?
Oh yeah. Maybe he's appropriate in that manner as well.
No. That's still not right. Except for the rare game against the suddenly Leaf-like Flames, the Leafs can be entertaining. Even if sometimes by accident.
What does Carlton ever do?
I tend to completely forget that the Leafs even HAVE a mascot until he's caught on camera --- and even that is only once in a while.
I doubt I've ever seen him more than once or twice a season.
And EVERY time I do, he's busy doing . . . doing . . . well doing absolutely NOTHING.
Just standing there looking dumb. As if embarrassed by his own complete nothingness, his total lack of emotion and/or character.
I've seen Gund bears and other stuffed animals with far more personality. Some even move about a lot more, even if by accident.
I have NO idea what this stuffy and stiff polar bear is supposed to represent. Sure, if this was Churchill, Manitoba, I'd understand the polar bear reference. But in one of our southernmost cities?
I might think he's a Coke pitchman in disguise, but then I think his colour scheme should be red and white, not blue and white.
Oh well, I guess his slightly stunned silence fits in well with the stuffed suits that occupy the Gold and Platinum seats during the second half of the second and third periods.
Fortunately the two other Canadian NHL teams in the east have mascots with energy to burn and charisma to spare. To me, Spartacat in Ottawa and Youpi in Montreal are two of the finest mascots you'll find anywhere, in any sport. At times frantic but ALWAYS funny, these guys KNOW how to pump up a crowd.
There's no mistaking what they are all about. It's spelled F-U-N, with at least three exclamation points --- !!! --- even on their poorest nights.
Heck, even Calgary's crowd-pleasing Harvey the Hound was animated enough to get his tongue yanked out when Craig McT was still behind the Oilers bench.
As for Carlton? To paraphrase a hoary old misguided cliche too often hurled at our nation's capital, this sad-sack polar bear looks like the mascot that fun --- and fans --- forgot.
Maybe out of the spotlight and up in the nosebleed sections he's the life of the party. But you'd never know it from what we occasionally see on TV. Besides, we prefer mascots that are almost always on.
Heck, if I was sick in the hospital and that depressing excuse for a costumed character came to visit, I would assume some doctor sent him in to impart some terrible news. And even if he NEVER spoke, his stupid, slightly stunned look wouldn't cheer me up.
Like the team I assume he's supposed to represent, I'd most likely take a turn for the worse.
Can someone PLEASE explain Carlton to me?

[Sensi-Bill]

OK. That's it. My comments are getting farrrrrr too long. (I should probably post them as entries on my own, terribly neglected, general-interest blog.)
You guys DO inspire me but from now on I AM gonna try REALLY hard to embrace the God of Brevity,
I'll be back SHORTLY. LOL

[Robert]

Sensi-Bill you've seen the team on Saturday, why should the mascot be any different?

[Boo Who?]

The only Toronto mascot I've ever really been entertained by is the Raptor. Whenever I attended games I'd spend half the night distracted by him, because he was hilarious - always biting people's heads, stealing hats from fans of opposing teams etc. Carlton, as far as I can recall, fires t-shirts into the crowd, and hugs little children. He's a cuddly, harmless fellow. Much like our beloved team.

Didn't watch the game. I suppose it's just as well, because this is an all too familiar result. I went through three years of a self-imposed hockey ban because it got too frustrating watching them lose to teams they could easily have beaten on an average night. Don't worry guys, towards the end of the season they'll catch fire again...when it's far too late for anyone besides their die-hard fans to care!

[hoofheartz]

Sensi-Bill, I'm not sure if Carlton was around at MLG but perhaps he got his name from there. Didn't MLG used to be known as the Carlton St cashbox?

[Ostrich Lover]

Gotta focus on the positives: One Point when we shoulda got none. Grabovski jumping into the arms of Carlton the Bear. Leafs only allow one goal against.

Reading the comments section across the Star today, its obvious that it time for a Defense of Brian Burke article. Some people wanna hang the guy for nothing.

[moe green]

This loss had NOTHING to do with Brian Burke. If anyone other than the players was responsible for this mess it was Wilson. He actually mumbled something about "not having legs" during his post game. What the hell does that even mean? How about stopping the insane game-day skates. What a stupid custom that is. I bet the best teams don't do that anymore. At least not the progressive ones. I am trying to imagine getting up in the morning, practicing, showering, then returning a few hours later for a game. Talk about sapping energy.

Yeah and I heard Wilson comment about how hard Grabovski works after practice especially on his shooting. Any chance that three of the worst shooters in the league: Kaberle, Beauchemin and Phaneuf could join him? I guess they're not really paid enough to put in the extra effort.

[moe green]

I just checked. Kaberle and Phaneuf have the worst and second worst shooting percentages in the ENTIRE LEAGUE!!! Beauch is in the bottom ten as well!

[moe green]

Positives Ostritch? Are you kidding. The only thing positive is that they showed they could actually play once it was nearly too late. What a sorry exhibition that was. Did you notice how horribly Calgary played? That reminded me of the loss against the woeful Oilers a while back. Stunningly horrible games.

[leafland'r]

ONE point:
...and that ONE point is the ONE point forwardly gained on Atlanta for the final playoff spot.
Oh,...and Carlton was hanging out at the Maple Leaf Gardens on Carlton Street ( after which he was named) before moving to the ACC.

[moe]

These criminals are so out of touch. They could come up with a blue freaking spider monkey named "drink more beer" and think it was a good name for a Leafs mascot.

The people that run MLSE, the board, they are nothings of humanity. Talentless, feckless drones who lucked into their positions or had it all handed to them. They haven't got a creative bone in their limp, sickly bodies. The evidence is all around the team and the company. That's how you explain "Carlton the Bear."

These are the ones who convince themselves that they earned their riches through hard work. Not a one of them put in a hard day's work in their lives. Sake of argument: If you were given 50 million you think you could turn it into 60 million in a year or two? Of course you could.

[Alecia]

Carlton the bear is named after Carlton Street where Maple Leaf Gardens is.

[Wade]

You know, I'm started to get a little worried. Not about wins and losses but about our safety.

The ACC might be quieter than the Gardens. I don't mean the Gardens when the Leafs played there pre-ACC, I mean right now. The Gardens dark and closed and waiting silently for reconstruction.

The ice is the slowest in the northern hemisphere. I mean, if they saved money and left the floor bare concrete and played ball hockey, would we - let alone Bob Cole - notice?

Carlton has always been spooky. The eerily quiet not really smiling not really smirking stealth bear with dead eyes. He's switched his jersey. We didn't really notice because we never really notice him, but we know he is there. Lurking.

What if this isn't all an accident after all? What if this is by design?

What if Carlton's next move is wear a giant Queen of Diamonds jersey?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkP_eYtrF6I&playnext=1&list=PL3C42924F361CB1CD&index=60

What if as soon as the snow melts we all suddenly feel irresistably compelled to walk to the nearest highway and start paving and tarring it by hand? http://www.kilmercapital.com/team_larry.html

Can you imagine what could happen once Rogers takes over!?

And Frank's dead. He can't help us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6SQfoirS1s&feature=related

[E.M.]

Vinay, once again I must commend your talent at creating images with words:
"But if you're determined to replicate the excitement of those first 58 minutes, you could always break into a Madame Tussauds museum after closing and strike up a conversation with a wax statue of Lyndon B. Johnson while nibbling on a slice of construction paper."

LOL! A classic among your other classics! :)

-EM

[Nik Culoman]

Even a constant optimist like me was a little disappointed after Saturday's game. I had expected more foot speed, more agressive forecheck, and so on....The game was flat and once again outside of the Grabo, Kulemin, McArthur line the Leafs looked flat.

To my point, To those who think trading Grabbo, McArthur would garner something great in a trade let me put this to you. What do we really think Grabbo/McArthur could get us in a trade?? Possibly a 2nd round pick at best??? Maybe a low first rounder???

With that being the case could that pick or picks score at a better clip than Grabbo/McArthur??? This team is suffering from fire power, if we are to trade these guys, who is going to score next year?? Can we replace this scoring within our farm system?? Could we replace this scoring with the picks we get for them?? If no or even possibly yes are the answers...Than let keep these guys...

Who I would hope to find a new home for would be the following:

Kaberle-Too soft in the defensive end, but good puck moving d-man

Beauchmin-Could fetch more picks, and we could replace him with Aulie and give Aulie some more game action on the big team.

Komi-This man has a limited trade clause, I would have his agent locate teams and see what we can be worked out.....

Giggy-Now this is a class-act....This guy understands where this team is going, and knows he could experience playoff success elsewhere...He has in essence accepted to be traded...Which benefits the team, and place him in a position to further his career with a contender ( cough cough...Sundin look at how you should have treated this situation....Thanks Giggy for being a true Professional)

No to the following trades:

Anything that means we are trading away one of our goalie prospects...Let's see who is worth keeping before dealing away anyone...

Any prospects for that matter, unless we can get prospects or picks back...Brunnstrom trade as example....The player we traded wasn't going to be anything of consequence, Brunnstrom may yet still turn into a NHLer....

Now that would be my approach..I think this team has some solid pieces...This summer will be interesting once free agency opens.....With close 23 million in extra room...BB has this team in a position to be aggressive come July.

[Simmer]

This just in:

Kellogg's stocks skyrocket as the demand for Eggo Waffles goes through the roof in Toronto.

@Wade
We all know once Rogers takes over we'll have ourselves a new mascot finally.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your new mascot, Roger the HD PVR Box!"

[Alecia]

Just a note, all the game hosts (you know, the people who hold all the contests between whistles) on Saturday were wearing Team Canada Jerseys, not just Carlton.

[Vinay Menon]

Thanks for your comments and kind words. And for the nightmare I had last night about Carlton the Bear.
Just put up a new post by our friend Moe Green...

[Sensi-Bill]

Thanks guys. Seems my assumptions about clueless Carlton are pretty accurate.
FLASHBACK: MLSE execs gather in old Maple Leaf Gardens.
VP of Hidden Assets and Antiquities (players): "I've just discovered we have a mascot. Found this silent, spooky old bear haunting the back hallways."
VP of Maximizing Profit and Beer Concessions: "Maybe we could use him up front?"
VP of Ticket Prices and Penny Pinching: "Will it cost us anything?"
VP of Human Resources and Mind Control: "Not if we keep him heavily sedated and out of touch with the revenue sources (fans)."
VP of Worry Warting and Legal Loopholes: "What should we call him?"
VP of Creativity and Washrooms (standing by a window and gazing outside): "Carlton."
Nuff said.

[red5]

OK - The address of Maple Leaf Gardens was/is 60 Carlton St. Carlton the Bear wears jersey #60. He participates in the in-game entertainment stuff (which is not broadcast on TV), and was much more entertaining just after they moved into the ACC.

Also, Saturday's game was Hockey Canada day, hence the jersey. They were basically trying to promote the Top Prospects game on Wednesday (gave tickets to a whole section).

Finally, the Creemore stand is still there; between the Tim Horton's and Burkie's Dog House on the 100 level. Just too impatient last time.

VM Replies: I still need to find this Creemore stand. Thanks for all the great info, as per usual.

[mileskai77]

Thanks so much for this! I haven't been this thrilled by a post for a long time! You have got it, whatever that means in blogging. Anyway, You're certainly somebody that has something to say that people should hear. Keep up the good work. Keep on inspiring the people!
Sleepys