Sinking in the Swamp

John Ferguson, it would appear, is going to have to find himself a defenceman. Soon.

In two games without Pavel Kubina this season, the Leafs have given up 10 goals against. With Kubina, in three games they allowed three goals.

That's a trend that's likely going to continue as long as Kubina is out.

See, as much as people are going to be all over Hal Gill today, or Ian White, or convinced that Wade Belak and Jay Harrison aren't NHL defencemen, the larger problem lies at the top of the Leaf blueline depth chart.

Kubina loomed as a crucial factor for the Leafs because he allowed Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle to play less.

McCabe and Kaberle are quality offensive defenceman and excellent puck movers.

But neither is going to remind you of Harry Howell or Rod Langway in their own zone anytime soon. Moreover, as a pair, they've never been a tandem that can consistently be a suffocating force in the final minutes of periods and games.

The more McCabe plays, the less positionally efficient he becomes, and the more scrambly he plays. The more Kaberle plays past a certain minutes level, the more likely he is to overhandle and turn over the puck and the more likely he is to lose one-on-one battles.

When Brian Gionta got the Devils rally started in the third period Thursday night, it was the result of McCabe being caught out of position and forced to take a hooking penalty.

When Gionta made it 6-5, the play originated with a Kaberle turnover.

On the goal that tied the game with 38 seconds left, both Kaberle and McCabe were on the ice, and you think it might have occurred to one of them to cover Gionta, who wasn't hard to find standing by the right post.

Instead, Gionta was alone and the closest Leafs to J.S. Aubin were Mike Peca and Alex Steen. Both McCabe and Kaberle were horribly out of position - McCabe guessing towards the corner, Kaberle not even in the picture cruising back - as the Devils tied the game 6-6 and won it on a shootout.

It was an embarrassing collapse by the Leafs in The Swamp, and with Belak and Harrison all but stapled to the bench for the third and OT periods, it came down to the Leafs failing to continue pressuring the Devils offensively and the inability of McCabe and Kaberle to be a dominant, decisive defensive force in the third period.

McCabe played 32:51, Kaberle 29:48, Gill 26:17 and White an extended 24:56.

That's too long for all of them, even in an OT game. But with Belak getting only 7:26 and Harrison seeing only 8:14, a signal of a lack of confidence in those two from the coaching staff, that's what going to keep happening.

You have to believe Ferguson is going to have to find an experienced D-man to take some of the heat off his top four. You can't expect Brendan Bell to be the answer.

Teams watch tape. And you can bet the Calgary Flames, able to score only four goals all season, will have extra copies of the Leafs-Devils game to analyze in time for Saturday night.

The Minny Circus

If you want to see a shootout show, check out the Minnesota Wild next time they go to deciding penalty shots.

The Wild, of course, have changed their team personality this year, going from a stolid defensive club into an attacking team capable of explosive offence.

In the shootout, however, it's like watching the Harlem Globetrotters, as Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks found out last night.

Four Minnesota shooters - none of them named Marian Gaborik - took a free shot on Luongo, and three of them scored via distinctly different tactics.

First, Pavol Demitra swerved far right almost to the boards, cut in towards the Vancouver net and fired a wrist shot past Luongo's blocker.

Then the left-handed shooting Mikko Koivu swerved left, not quite as far as Demitra, then beat Luongo by cutting to his right and lifting a spectacular backhand to the top right corner.

Brian Rolston was the third Minny shooter, and he left Luongo flopping in his crease, as well with a backhand move. Sadly for Rolston, he was a little too casual on his shot and fired it into a sprawling Luongo's glove.

Finally, it was defenceman Petteri Nummelin's chance, and he dazzled the crowd and left Luongo on his butt with a gorgeous backhand deke to give the Wild the shootout, 3-2.

It was the seventh shootout of the young NHL season. The five goals improved the shooting percentage of NHL snipers in the shootout to slightly more than 24 per cent (15-for-62), not nearly the 50-50 proposition most would believe a breakaway is at that level.

Then again, that shooting percentage would be higher if the Rangers and Flyers hadn't gone a combined 1-26 in their Saturday shootout.

Interestingly, the Wild were the first team so far this season to take advantage of the new rule that allows the home team to choose to go second in the shootout.

In the other six shootouts, including two involving the Leafs, the home team chose to shoot first, and lost on four occasions.

Leaf head coach Paul Maurice says his forwards want to shoot first and his goalies want the chance to be the hero by saving the deciding shot.

So far, the numbers say Maurice is wrong. But we'll see how this pattern develops over the course of the season.

Premature Evaluation?

Painted for months in many corners as hopelessly incompetent, John Ferguson probably can go to work most days knowing the criticism can't get any worse.

Even last week after the season opening loss to Ottawa, one radio commentator was assuring his listeners that Colin Campbell would be the new Leaf GM by U.S. Thanksgiving, no later.

Well, given the Leafs are off to a solid start in this very young NHL season, it's probably fair to give JFJ some kudos for the job done so far.

After making a boatload of personnel errors coming out of the lockout, it seems as though Ferguson may have had a very good summer of '06, one that might even eventually earn him a contract extension, with his current deal set to expire after this season.

A year ago, the Leafs were just starting to learn that the players added in the summer of '05 - Eric Lindros, Jason Allison, Mariusz Czerkawski, Alexander Khavanov - were not going to make the club a winner.

This past summer, however, Ferguson started strong by firing Pat Quinn and releasing both Ed Belfour and Tie Domi.

Then he got hot:

- Paul Maurice appears to have been the perfect choice to succeed Quinn, a younger man with a belief that a more structured approach that forced the players to be more accountable could improve the club. Just the fact the Leafs appear to be en route to becoming a far more disciplined team, with the same dumb penalties no longer excused over and over, is an enlightening change.

- At the moment, there is no fear Leaf fans will string Ferguson up for dealing away goalie prospect Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft.

Raycroft has been excellent so far, and while Rask may one day be a star, it could well be that the Bruins were a little hasty in writing off Raycroft and handing the goaltending reins to Tim Thomas and Hannu Toivonen. Most important, if Raycroft is as good as he seems to be, it will give Justin Pogge two full seasons in the AHL to develop at a proper pace.

- You can debate whether Pavel Kubina is worth $5 million a season. What is not debatable is that in the three games he has played, he has been no worse than the team's second best defenceman behind Tomas Kaberle and possibly its best.

- Bryan McCabe? Not even close to Kubina so far, which is why Leaf fans should be deathly afraid Kubina's injury picked up in the third period against Florida Monday night could be serious.

- Signing Mike Peca not only substantially increased the team's on-ice I.Q., it has added a layer of class and leadership to the team's dressing room that simply didn't exist before.

- Peca may not manage half the points Allison did last season. Still, it's already obvious he's twice the player.

In general, there's no question Ferguson is out of excuses and alibis. This is his team now run by his handpicked choice as head coach and it's pretty obvious he needs a playoff berth to keep his job.

He's running for re-hire on his record, and so far this season his chances of success have brightened considerably.

The Gaping Hole Left Behind

The second night of the NHL season was a night for more than a couple of teams to pat themselves on the back for free agent money well-spent.

By December, of course, those same teams may be lamenting their personnel purchases. But this is October, and this was one night.

Flashy Martin Havlat, the $6 million Blackhawk, was a thrill-a-shift in his Chicago debut. Brendan Shanahan scored twice for the Rangers, including his 600th. Vancouver won in Detroit with its new king of the nets, Roberto Luongo.

Petr Sykora scored twice for the Oilers. Branko Radivojevic scored for the Wild, while Curtis Brown scored the OT winner for his new team, the San Jose Sharks.

Even the Leafs were part of this, albeit in a more subtle way. Pavel Kubina, after missing the opener due to suspension, looked strong, mobile and skilful on the Toronto blueline in Thursday's shocking 6-0 romp over Ottawa.

More important, his presence allowed the Leafs to play Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle 21:50 and 22:17, respectively, after both skated six minutes more in the season opener at the ACC.

With McCabe, in particular, a little less ice time could mean a great deal more quality. He was certainly markedly better and much more energetic on Thursday compared to Wednesday.

For every purchase, however, there's also a team that lost that player, which brings us to the Senators.

This is a deep, strong team, well-coached and well-managed and almost certainly still one of the Eastern Conference's top four or five squads.

But after watching them closely in person for two nights, it seems obvious that the loss of Zdeno Chara has significantly altered the appearance and overall effect of this hockey club.

Havlat added excitement and secondary scoring, yes. But Chara added everything.

The 6-foot-9 Chara took all the guesswork out of the game for the Sens. The other team's best player would hop over the boards, and Chara would follow.

He could not only neutralize such players, he could physically punish them. Chris Neil and Brian McGrattan are useful secondary weapons, but Chara was out there all the time, laying the lumber and the elbows on the other's teams most important athletes.

Now he's gone, and there's an awful lot more Christopher Schubert and Anton Volchenkov where Chara once was. For two nights, Mats Sundin seemed to have a lot of open ice without having to look around for the towering Slovak.

Would it have been the same if Ottawa had kept Chara and let Wade Redden walk? Not quite as yawning a hole would have resulted.

The Sens will adjust. But the point is, they'll have to.

Without Chara, they may be successful, but they'll have to be very different.

Farewell to The Don

Don Matthews always struck me as a sturdy, if weathered, man. He has a military past and, at times, carried himself with a military bearing.

So the fact he has now left head coaching positions in the Canadian Football League twice in the past six years citing "health problems" is strange. Fishy even.

He's 67 with a lot of miles on his professional and personal life, so it could well be the health problems that drove him to a controversial exit out of Edmonton in 2000 simply popped up again this season in Montreal, forcing him to leave as the club's head coach on Wednesday.

Whether he resigned or was fired, of course, may never be known, sort of like Mike Keenan's departure from the Florida Panthers a few weeks ago.

Few people in Montreal are buying the gracious exit line being fed by the Alouettes, if only because Matthews has made an awful lot of media enemies in that city over the years. Montreal Gazette columnist Jack Todd insists it was a firing, and certainly that newspaper's football writer Herb Zurkowsky looks awfully smart today for holding his ground and reporting a month ago that the Als had sent feelers around to Calgary executive Jim Barker to see if he'd be willing to take over the Als if Matthews left.

The Als were denying that again yesterday, but it seems clear that Matthews' departure was the culmination of a weeks long process, not a sudden bolt of lightning. The Alouettes have been plummeting for two months now, and CFL history tells us that Matthews, the league's all-time winningest coach, has worn out his welcome before.

GM Jim Popp, 0-2 as Alouette coach after taking over from Rod Rust some years ago, is now the coach, and there's a strong sense the Montreal freefall will continue.

Suddenly, the Argonauts are the clear favourites to win the east, host the eastern final and make it to November's Grey Cup game in Winnipeg. Pinball Clemons' group gets three of its final four games at home and plays the woeful Edmonton Eskimos twice.

With Matthews gone, the biggest threat to the Argos may be inconsistent Winnipeg, a strong defensive club that will be trying to play at home in the Grey Cup game.

Remembering a Fine Whine

To understand how times and tempers have changed in the post-Pat Quinn era, just look at the way in which the club has handled two disciplinary rulings handed down by the NHL in recent days.

Quinn, it’s fair to say, was not only a classic and relentless referee-baiter, he was often at odds with league officials for the manner in which players were or were not suspended.

Most of it, of course, was simply partisan stuff. Geez, you could always get him to say that he believed Marian Hossa intentionally stuck his stick in Bryan Berard’s eye.

But in regards to the Dany Heatley non-suspension and the Pavel Kubina ban that knocks the big rearguard out of the Leaf opener Wednesday night, there has been only silence or humble words from head coach Paul Maurice and GM John Ferguson.

Oddly enough, they sure had something to complain about.

Heatley, you may recall, took a wild, woodchopper-like swing at the puck and connected with Leaf defenceman Brendan Bell’s foot and ankle, eliminating Bell from the competition for a Leaf roster position.

By the time all is said and done, Bell will have missed two weeks or more.

Then, on Sunday night, Kubina foolishly crosschecked smallish Detroit forward Jiri Hudler in the chest, probably catching the lower part of his jaw. It was a stupid, needless move by Kubina, since the whistle was long gone and Hudler was hardly threatening him in any way.

Hudler wasn’t hurt and played on the subsequent power play, with Kubina given a five-minute major and a game misconduct.

Subsquently, he received the one-game suspension from league sheriff Colin Campbell.

So Heatley hacks and injures, and walks and will be in the Ottawa lineup for the Toronto home opener.

Kubina crosschecks and doesn’t injure, and gets one game.

Huh?

Making it worse for the Leafs is that Bell can’t be considered as a possible substitution for Kubina since he’s still working his way back from the foot injury.

The piece de resistance, of course, would be if Heatley has his way with the Leafs Wednesday night, something he’s certainly done before.

Pat Quinn, you have to believe, would have had something to say about all of this.

The Value of Cap Space

It was, essentially, a trade of an imaginary number for a future possibility.

The deal involved three different players, of course, but none of them really mattered.

The San Jose Sharks, with lots of salary cap space going into the 2006-07 season, basically traded some of it on Sunday to the New Jersey Devils for a conditional first round pick.

The condition on the pick is that if the Devils miss the playoffs this year, the selection will be for the 2008 draft, not the '07 draft.

The Devils were finding themselves strangled by the $3.6 million attributed to the suspended/retired Vladimir Malakhov. The Sharks now theoretically own Malakhov, but since they don't have to pay him and are still well below the $44 million payroll maximum, it was no skin off their noses to take on the contract.

Malakhov's salary cap number, then, goes from being a major financial hindrance for the Devils to an imaginary figure with no impact on the Sharks, who get a first rounder they can use this winter to fortify their lineup like Edmonton (Dwayne Roloson, Sergei Samsonov) and Carolina (Doug Weight, Mark Recchi) did last season.

And none of the players involved in the Sharks-Devils trade - Malahkov, Jim Fahey, Alexander Korolyuk - really matter. That's the new NHL.

So where does this leave Jersey and their cap crunch?

The Devils have 14 players under contract for a cap figure of about $38 million. That includes Alexander Mogilny ($3.5 million) but doesn't include Richard Matvichuk ($1.4 million) and Jason Weimer ($950,000), both of whom will start the season on the injured list and therefore don't count against the cap.

That leaves Lou Lamoriello with about $6 million to spend on eight or nine players to fill out his roster by 3 p.m. Tuesday.

He needs to sign Brian Gionta and Paul Martin, neither of whom has played an exhibition game but are nonetheless with the club. Also unsigned are defenceman David Hale, winger Erik Rasmussen and backup goalie Scott Clemmensen, although all are supposed to have essentially agreed to terms.

The trick is that Lamoriello just needs to have a roster by Tuesday. He doesn't have to have all these players signed by then.

So he may fill out his lineup in the short-term with the likes of Travis Zajac, Johnny Oduya, Olli Malmivaara and Andy Greene, and gradually get Gionta et al signed once he clears out a bit more cap room.

The Devils GM may even begin the season this way. Don't forget, he had defenceman Tommy Albelin simply hang around the team last year practicing until he finally signed the veteran in December.

There were two other significant trades over the weekend:

The Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes dealt prize defence prospect Jack Johnson and veteran blueliner Oleg Tverdovsky to Los Angeles for defenceman Tim Gleason and centre Eric Belanger.

If you didn't think the Canes could repeat last week, you might want to rethink that this week. Gleason helps a blueline that lost Aaron Ward and won't have Frantisek Kaberle for months, while Belanger is an underrated player who makes the club deep down the middle with Eric Staal and Rod Brind'Amour already in place.

Johnson didn't want to leave the University of Michigan and the Canes needed help now. If he turns out to be a star, they may eventually regret this deal. But not soon.

Montreal had simply grown tired of Mike Ribeiro's neo-gansta act, and they needed a defenceman. Janne Niinimaa fit the bill, so he goes to the Habs from Dallas for Ribeiro.

Two years ago, the threesome of Ribeiro, Jose Theodore and Pierre Dagenais were an irritant in the Canadiens organization for the way in which they ran together. Now all three have been rinsed from the organization.

Dallas, meanwhile, is a puzzle. They've taken the captaincy away from Mike Modano and given it to the newly rich Brenden Morrow, and they've added players like Eric Lindros, Matthew Barnaby, Patrik Stefan, Jeff Halpern and now Ribeiro. Not sure at all what direction this team is going.