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Damien Cox, the Star's hockey columnist and associate sports editor, takes turns stirring up trouble and chuckling at the foibles of the sporting world. He'll start with hockey, Canada's ongoing passion play, and stick his nose into a few other games and places where athletes reside. You'll love some of his thoughts, hate others and get a chance to give your two cents on all of them.
The Leafs are so boring to watch now, that they could kill hockey in Toronto. No characters to get the fans excited. They're all little guys who skate up and down the ice who don't dare make a mean face at the opponent.
Then again the whole NHL has now gone this way. No more room for emotion or passion. And if there is any passion, up goes the referees arm. Hockey has become soccer on ice, with players diving all over the place at the slightest touch.
Guess this is the type of hockey guys like Cox have been crying for all these years. Back and forth like ping pong with about as much excitement as a baseball game.
Well Damien, the fans are falling asleep at these borefests. You got what you wanted. Nice safe tame hockey where everybody loves each other. You must be so happy.
Posted by: Rick Gross | April 12, 2009 at 10:27 AM
It's only a failure if you insist on believing that the development of youth will come without some bumps along the way.
As for your comments about lacking potential top 6 forwards, consider the following:
Grabovski posted similar numbers in the point production department to Jeff Carter 2 years ago, Patrick O'Sullivan last year, Jordan Staal this year, Patrick Berglund this year, Wojtek Wolski last year, David Perron this year, Joe Pavelski two years ago, and Claude Giroux this year. Yes he's older than every one of those players but that doesn't change the fact that he's in the group. It's not actually a very long list - only 12 players fit the 0.6-0.65 ppg, 0.2-0.25 goals created per game, in their first 3 seasons in the NHL over the last two years. That's elite young company.
Then there's Kulemin. Using similar categorization on Hockey-Reference, I compared him to other rookies since the '05-'06 season, who produced between 0.4 and 0.45 points per game, and between 0.15 and 0.18 goals created, per game while playing over 40 games. That list included Rene Bourque, Zach Parise, David Perron, Corey Perry, Phil Kessel, Mike Richards, David Moss, Mason Raymond, and Brendan Bochenski. He's only 22 and he had the second highest number of goals in the group. I'm not saying he's the next Parise, but if turns out somewhere in the middle of that pack, he's easily a top 6 forward, and it's BASED ON SOMETHING TANGIBLE.
Let's stop pretending the Leafs have no talent at all shall we Negatron?
Posted by: Steve | April 12, 2009 at 03:58 PM
This season was not wasted. Schenn and Grabovski both have developed as players, we got to see what we have in Justin Pogge (answer: not much), and we finally saw some effort night in and night out.
Despite this a loss at the end of the year was what most Leafs fans were hoping for but with the arrival of Burke and his will to have this team be competitive quickly this season could be just the jumping off point to something special.
Posted by: Nathan | April 13, 2009 at 03:33 PM