In Phoenix, Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Propaganda value aside, it was never about how many fans the Phoenix Coyotes could draw to its home opener.

With deeply discounted tickets and free t-shirts, that was easy.

It was about the second game and beyond, and last night's numbers against the St. Louis Blues at jobing.com arena illustrated where this bankrupt franchise is really at.

Just 6,899 customers gathered to watch the Yotes beat the Blues in OT, the smallest, non-weather related attendance for an NHL game in recent memory. Years ago, when Carolina was playing out of Greensboro before moving fulltime to Raligh, the Canes drew a few tiny crowds.

But at under 7,000, we now know how much destruction was done to the Phoenix hockey business over the summer months as the battle between the NHL and Jim Balsillie dragged on. The opening night sellout/whiteout really meant nothing.

Now, we'll see if they can gradually build with the threat of relocation still hanging over the franchise.

Thursday Mail Bag

Another season, another mail bag.

Safe to say that last year, readers of this blog were remarkably resourceful when it came to participating in the weekly mail bag, often contributing unique points of view and helping to generate conversation and discussion the Leafs and other hockey matters.

So of course it’s back.

Among this week’s questions, of course, there are few that highlight the positives about the Leafs. When the Leafs are down or when they are up, it overshadows pretty much everything else on the hockey horizon in this town. Needless to say, a six-game losing streak to start the season means lots of questions about Ron Wilson, Francois Beauchemin, Mike Komisarek and Luke Schenn, but surprisingly few about the goaltending, which to me, is at the root of all the club’s problems at the moment.

Maybe it’ll all turn around Saturday against the Rangers. Even under the worst case scenario the Leafs are going to win 30 or more games this season, so they might as well start soon.

Now on to this week’s mail bag:

Q: Damien,

I just finished reading your comments about (Luke) Schenn and how you think he was rushed into the league and regressing this year. I think your looking at the wrong side of the ice; the problem is Beauchemin, not Schenn. All you have to do is look at how much better Schenn played with White, then how he is doing with Beauchmin. I'm not sure why the two are struggling so badly together, but I think the team made it clear to Schenn that Beauchemin was to be his "mentor" and Schenn seems to be deferring to Beauchemin and not making his own decisions on the ice. In the end they both look bad but with the "experience" factor of Beauchemin he looks worse.

If this poor play on the part of Beauchmin continues then I think you can begin to spell his name Mc-C-A-B-E!

Your Thoughts?

Jamie Hubbert, Ottawa

A: I hear what you’re saying. Problem is, Schenn has played with other defencemen this season and not really looked better. He’s a hard-working, dedicated young hockey player, but what you’re seeing is the danger of moving youngsters too fast. He may actually be about the same as he was for most of last year, but expectations are higher, and now even something useful - like sitting him down for a game, or sending him to the minors for seasoning - will be viewed as a negative, as a step backwards. But you can’t look at other players and blame them for Schenn’s struggles, although poor team defence exposes individuals. What bothers me most is not sending Schenn back to junior last year cost him a year of being a dominant WHLer, a year of playing on the power play, a year of developing his offensive game. How many other NHL defenceman do you know who can’t take a slapshot? This is so much like the way in which the Leafs “handled” Luke Richardson as a young defenceman it's scary. That said, Schenn is still a very good NHL prospect, one that needs to be protected from the clouds hanging over the team right now.

Q: I'm starting to believe that this is becoming squarely a coaching issue. Sure, on paper it isn't exactly a first class roster by any means but for how multi-dimensional the failure of this team is so far this year all signs lead back to failed leadership from the coaching staff. Still the worst PK in the league and a defense that is perpetually mistake prone. Beauchemin arrives in Toronto and is suddenly a mediocre d-man, ditto Komisarek? Aside of the first game against Montreal the forecheck has been completely MIA. The team is either unwilling or unable to buy into Ron Wilson's system -whatever that is.

Granted I'm just some yutz with an armchair opinion and maybe Wilson will turn it around. But if as the season goes on there's no improvement do you think Burke would be able to set aside personal loyalty and at the risk of destabilizing Team USA fire Ron Wilson?

Thanks,

Matt Kuzyk, North Bay, Ont.

A: Doesn’t seem likely that Burke would can Wilson, just as it doesn’t seem likely that the Leafs will remain this bad. Don’t forget, opening night they looked pretty darn good in many ways. All this said, continued losing would clearly put the job of Wilson at risk during this season, and beyond that, if the Leafs miss the post-season and see no areas of team or individual development under Wilson, this will become a bigger issue next spring. Right now, I don’t think the situation with Team USA has anything to do with it.

Q: Everybody's debating the Phil Kessel deal, but here's a question. What was the urgency to complete the deal for a player that won't play until November? Could Burke have waited a few weeks to see how his team came out of the gate, and then maybe determined he'd rather hold on to his draft picks given that they're looking more like lottery picks?

Dave Paynter, Toronto

A: I guess the answer is that Burke saw an opportunity and seized the moment. Also, the player and his agent were anxious for a move and a new contract, and Boston surely didn’t want an unresolved situation sitting around. From a Leaf point of view, the chance to grab a 21-year-old winger with game-breaking potential was irresistible, plus they wanted to get their cap situation in line. Sometimes the timing of things in the NHL doesn’t make sense but is just kind of the rhythm of when hockey matters get resolved. But don’t underestimate the power of the agent in this one to put pressure on both the Leafs and Bruins to get something done.

Q: Why isn't Burke getting the criticism he deserves? We keep blaming Wilson and Toskala yet look at the team that Burke has created? Colton Orr? Exelby? Kept Mayers? Its a goon fest with no grit. The top line features Gabrovski, Pony and Blake? A third line at best. This team that he has built isn't competitive with the current NHL and it shows by the product on the ice. Finally he traded away our top draft picks so the Leafs losing season will be even more pointless. When is the media going to hold Burke accountable?

Regg Struyk, Guelph, Ont.

A: Well, don’t know what you’re reading or watching or listening to, but it sure seems to me Burke is getting lots of criticism from many different quarters. I think he’s very much being held accountable, and to make “the media” sound like they’re not doing a good job of evaluating the Leaf GM is just incorrect. Look, Burke may be in the early stages of really screwing this thing up. But he’s six games into his first full season and he’s a disaster already? Criticism is fair, but remember the team Burke inherited, and remember he signed a five-year deal. If they’re no better than this after the end of the 2010-11 season, then all bets are off.

Q: Watching the last few Leaf games I am seeing a team very disorganized. The team has no compete level in them to me this is coaching. Do you think the Leafs are tuning out Ron Wilson so early in the season and do you feel the team is simply not that good to compete at a NHL level?

Brian Marto, Markham

A: I think great coaches are made by great players. I also think outstanding coaching can make a team greater than the sum of its parts. Basically, then, at this point, there isn’t a Leaf I would give a passing grade to for individual performance, nor is there a Leaf coach that would pass either.

Q: Damien - how much of the Leafs' performance is down to leadership on the ice - or lack of it? Without a captain it's hard to see how the other parts of Burke's plan can start to deliver. Maybe I'm missing something but it can't help if the boss is saying there isn't ANYONE on this team good enough to wear the C.

Peter Hawkins, Northampton, UK

A: I don’t see the captaincy, per se, as that vital. The veterans certainly aren’t leading the way, but then, an open question is whether there’s much you can do to lead Matt Stajan or Alexei Ponikarovsky or Tomas Kaberle, Leafs who may simply have been Leafs for too long and lack the desperation and urgency to make this team better.

Q; Once Van Ryn is back, the Leafs will have 8 NHL defencemen on the roster. Three of them were brought in by Burke, Schenn is the future, and Kaberle cannot be moved at the moment. It does not make sense to have White, Finger or Van Ryn sitting in the pressbox when any of the Marlies defencemen could do the same. So which one of them is gone by Christmas?

David Gargaro, Thornhill

A: Again, there’s this belief that the Leafs have this great wealth of quality defencemen. I didn’t buy it last year when some commentators were citing Leaf blueline depth on a daily basis, and I don’t buy it this year. Moreover, exactly which Marlie defenceman has already proven he can play at the NHL level? None, to my estimation. If it were up to me - and it’s not - Kaberle would be induced to accept a trade, Schenn would be at the Ricoh Centre working on his offensive and defensive game for a month or two and the other veterans would be forced to fight for ice time. A little competition within the group would be healthy.

Every Thursday, Damien Cox answers your questions in The Spin, only at thestar.com. Click here to submit a question. **Note: please follow the link above to send a question to Damien. Questions posted in the comments section may not make it to the mailbag. Thanks.**

Call For Character

It's pretty simple. If the Maple Leafs have any character, it will show itself tonight at the Air Canada Centre.

The 2009-10 season has begun in nightmarish fashion for Ron Wilson's team, and all the coach's wisecracks and media baiting can't change the facts.

Winless in five, backstopped by a goalie who now has an .812 save percentage and a 5.56 goals against average and clearly the NHL's worst defensive team on merit, the Leafs have sunk to a shocking low already this season.

Last night's loss in New York might have been their worse yet. Tonight it's apparently improved Colorado in town, and really a last chance for a host of Leaf veterans to demonstrate whether they care enough to turn this thing around, or have the will to do so. If they can't, there will be changes, if only because GM Brian Burke has lots of time to make 'em.

After tonight, you see, the Leafs have only one game for the next 11 days, a bizarro break in the schedule, particularly in an Olympic season which is supposed to compress the schedule for everyone.

They get the Rangers at home on Saturday, then don't play again until the following Saturday when they begin a road trip in Vancouver. By then, rookie goalie Jonas Gustavsson should be back, but it's a little early to start depending on The Monster.

The Leafs, right now, look like a team desperate for a leader, desperate for somebody to point the way. Clearly, it's not Wilson at this moment, a coach who has proven completely unable to get this club to play anything resembling big-league defence over the past 14 months. It's fine that he regards anyone holding a pen or a microphone as a complete moron, but it's an approach that doesn't sell nearly as well when you're dead last in the standings.

Given that the team does not own a proven NHL starting goaltender, the need for quality defensive play is greater now than at any time previously during Wilson's reign. Yet the club ran around at Madison Square Garden last night even worse than they did at home to Pittsburgh on Saturday.

It would be a shocker if Burke pulled the plug on Wilson, and don't bet on it. But coaches do get canned after starts like this. It happens.

Here's one from the fantasy department for you. Imagine if Burke axed Wilson and turned to ex-Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky to coach the Leafs.

Would Gretzky do it? Could he possibly turn it down?

Now that would be a shakeup.

But again, that's pure fantasy, not even worthy of being called speculation. Try idle chatter.

Burke could do any number of things if the Leafs can't beat Colorado tonight.

Waive Vesa Toskala. Send Luke Schenn to the minors for seasoning (is everybody understanding more clearly now why I was so set against keeping this kid in the NHL last season?). Demote Jason Blake. Recall Tyler Bozak.

None of these moves would solve a whole lot. It would be more like shock therapy, moves designed to jolt the rest of the roster or clear cap space. But suggesting it's still early with no reason to make significant moves is ignoring the reality that this is not a problem that is five games old. It's 87 games old, the length of the Wilson coaching reign, the time span in which the problems with this club have become obvious yet mostly gone unfixed.

If the Leafs don't win tonight, Burke will have to do something. With all the optimism of training camp gone, he's quickly becoming a man on the hot seat.

Wasted Opportunity

The NHL had a problem fixed, and then let it slip away.

Last night included evidence of the idiocy the league has allowed to stay in the game with staged fights and the way in which good, hard bodychecks have essentially been outlawed by the players.

In the Leafs-Penguins game, there were two pointless staged fights, one between Colton Orr and Eric Godard and one between Jay Rosehill and Mike Rupp. Neither scrap had anything to do with the game or had any impact on the game.

In the Sens-Thrashers game, Zach Bogosian levelled Daniel Alfredsson with a beautiful open ice hit and was immediately set upon by a host of Senator players for his legal bodycheck.

The NHL's general managers, you may remember, took steps to cut back on both types of fights last March, but the failed state that is the NHL Players Association blocked the new rule recommendations.

The league, however, could have gone ahead with the rules and let the players grieve.

That, it appears, would have been the way to go. At least it would have been fighting the good fight.

Now the idiots continue to wreck our great game.

Bad Blood

The NHL has dealt with the tampering allegations between the Vancouver Canucks and Maple Leafs and it's a closed matter, right?

Sort of.

Left unresolved, it's fair to say, is the bad blood between the two clubs, a very personal dislike that seems likely to resurface again.

Did the Leafs tamper with the Sedins? Of course, not, at least not any more than any NHL club tampers with players who will be free agents. Teams talk to the agents, get a sense of what the players want or don't want, and sometimes it develops into a signing down the line.

Is that tampering? In theory, yes. But it happens all the time. Clearly, if the Leafs tampered with the Sedins, they didn't do it successfully. Leaf GM Brian Burke flew all the way to Sweden hoping to put in a face-to-face bid with the twins only to find they were already signed to new contracts by the Canucks.

If that was tampering, it didn't work.

And the TV stuff? Annoying, but hardly actionable.

What's below the surface here, however, matters, and that is that Canucks GM Mike Gillis is despised by the Leaf management team, specifically, Burke and Dave Nonis.

Nonis feels, rightly or wrongly, that Gillis stole his job in Vancouver by underhanded means.

In fact, Nonis would probably argue that Gillis "tampered" with the Canucks owners, finally convincing them he could do a better job running their team than Nonis.

Burke, meanwhile, is Nonis' buddy. He's told Gillis personally that he believes Gillis submarined Nonis by chatting up the Aquilini family.

So this, really, is personal. Now, after the tampering charges, its professional as well. How will it play out? Well, dislike between teams in the NHL these days often is expressed through offer sheets to restricted free agents.

Both teams better watch out.

Two Quick Thoughts

One, name another organization where the ombudsman becomes the spokesman.

Nope, can't think of one either.

Yet that's what has apparently happened with the messed-up NHL Players Association where Buzz Hargrove has risen to the top and become the voice of the union.

He says whether it was right or wrong to fire Paul Kelly. He calls Kelly a liar on the airwaves. He decides whether Roy McMurtry should have been asked to write a legal opinion on Kelly. He has an opinion on whether Kelly's emails should have been lifted and presented to the player reps.

This is an ombudsman we're talking about!!! Where in the world is Ian Penny, the orchestrator of all this chaos?

Two, one more thought on Ron Wilson accused the media of "building monuments" to players before they've done anything.

Interesting. Wasn't it Wilson who proclaimed that Nazem Kadri will one day be a "superstar" in the NHL?

A Poor Fit?

Sometimes you really have to wonder why Ron Wilson took the job of coaching the Maple Leafs.

Yes, money and a five-year contract while he was otherwise unemployed probably influenced him

But an open question when Wilson signed on with the club was how he would handle the scrutiny of his work and the performance of his teams in Toronto after stops in Anaheim, Washington and San Jose, places where the coverage of the NHL is minimal for the most part and, at times, non-existent

So far, not particularly well. All these people with their annoying questions and comments

Working in Toronto was always going to be a big, big change for Wilson, a good, experienced coach and a smart fellow, but also one of the more thin-skinned hockey men around

After all, the coverage of the Leafs has exploded in recent years. Twenty years ago, a coach might have to deal with three or four beat writers on a regular basis and the occasional TV camera and radio mike

These days, every day is like a full-blown presidential press conference. But it's no different than the coverage of the Yankees in New York - probably less - the Canadiens in Montreal - less intense - or the Cowboys in Dallas - probably similar

Wilson knew all of this going in. Brian Burke surely did as well, and he appears to be loving it. Not a single complaint. He wanted Toronto and all that entailed

But after winning 34 of his first 84 games in Toronto, Wilson seems to be increasingly resentful of the fact fans and media alike have many questions about his hockey club and aren't afraid to vocalize them

He doesn't like positive coverage of his team or negative coverage. Just the other day in Washington, positive questions about the play of goalie Jonas Gustavsson were ridiculed, with Wilson saying the Toronto media always wants to "build monuments" to players before they've accomplished anything

Then he takes the opposite approach. In Paul Hunter's story today about the Leaf goaltending picture, Wilson takes exception to criticism of Vesa Toskala, calling it "grossly unfair."

So the monolithic media is either building monuments or guilty of gross unfairness

Basically, Wilson would prefer it if people just wrote down his words and published them verbatim

He said yesterday Leaf goalies have to perform not "under a microscope but under an electron microscope." True, its not like Anaheim or Washington or San Jose. But didn't he know that? And aren't there terrific benefits that go with working in hockey's Big Smoke, even for a sub-.500 coach? And wouldn't a smart coach use the glare of this market to fuel the performance of his players?

Read Joe Torre's book to learn about handling unrelenting media pressure while still winning championships

Wilson also loves to play games. For example, he said yesterday "We don't question anything about what Vesa's done," which is a complete untruth. Toskala's play has been a hot debating point within the organization for more than a year, and last year both Wilson and Burke questioned his play and work habits.

He said some of the club's defencemen have played like "peewee defencemen" in front of the goalies, but if you ever criticize the Leaf defence you're told the forwards aren't helping enough. His team has been the NHL's worst defensive outfit ever since he arrived, but its impossible to get him to actually explain why that is

The only reason any of this matters, of course, is that blaming the media offers up a crutch that some players are only too happy to lean on

"It's hard to feel good about yourself when you're always being questioned," Wison told reporters yesterday

Well, wahhh. Cry me a river. If I don't want hundreds of emails a week telling me what a moron I am or explaining how I could do my job better, then I wouldn't sign on to work covering hockey for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. After 20 years, I keenly understand the reality that readers of The Star feel they know more about the sport than I do and could write about it much more intelligently if given the chance. Both might even be true. Read the comments on this blog sometime. If you're writing hockey in Toronto, you'd better be ready to take a lot of shots if you're going to hand a few out.

Comes with the territory

With the Leafs, Burke knew what he was in for and accepts it. Doesn't bother him one iota, for example, that not everyone liked the Phil Kessel trade. He's not looking for love or consensus

Wilson, however, bristles under the attention and criticism. He either blames the media for nit-picking or complains that media types don't watch closely enough to understand his team

We're either building monuments or ripping players to shreds. He loves to term it all the product of "you guys," as though reporters and columnists for the Star, Sun, Post, Globe, TSN, Sportsnet, The Score, CBC, The Fan 590, AM640 and every other media outlet think as one, work as one and all do their jobs exactly the same way and with the same dedication and effort. Only always sunny Leaf TV propaganda seems to suit Wilson, and that may not even be true

You've gotta wonder why he took the job in the first place.

Forward Thinking Please

Hopefully the hiring of Alex Anthopolous means the endless reminiscing of the Blue Jays organization is over for good.

Enough already. Enough with the endless Summer of ’93, the endless Flashback Friday.

If one of the most used sports cliches of the modern era is "I'm just trying to move forward," why is it the Jays are seemingly stuck always trying to move backward?

What didn’t work for the Argos with Don Matthews and didn’t work for the Maple Leafs with Cliff Fletcher clearly hasn’t worked for the Jays with Paul Beeston and Cito Gaston.

Basic rule in sports. Going back never works, so why try?

Beeston looks prepared to move on. Gaston should. The opportunity available right now for Anthopolous won’t come along again, the opportunity to start with a fresh slate, with his own people, with all the pointless ties to the greatness of another era dismissed because today is today.

This is a franchise that has insulted the intelligence of its fan base repeatedly in recent years and now needs to put something on the table that looks new and sets the tone for a different era.

Sadly, the suggestion you here most is that the Jays should now bring Pat Gillick back as some kind of senior advisor. Again with the back-to-the-future stuff. Gillick is different than the others because he has gone on to have all kinds of success in his post-Jays career, but the symbolism of bringing him back, even if he were willing, would just further amplify the sense that this baseball organization lacks new answers to new problems.

Assuming he won’t sign, Roy Halladay must move on. The notion of bumping the payroll up over $100 million next year and trying to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox immediately doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The club needs to take a step back, build a base around Adam Lind and Aaron Hill, and generally become a more resourceful type of team. When J.P. Ricciardi arrived eight years ago, the idea was that this would become Oakland East, that the Jays would become one of those franchises who played the game the right way, invested in youth and gradually become consistently competitive not through money but through ideas and commitment to those ideas.

That was before Frank Thomas. And B.J. Ryan. And A.J. Burnett.

Well, this is another opportunity to get back to that way of thinking, or establish another new approach. Anthopolous didn’t have to sell his ideas to the organization – is there a reason the Jays didn’t look around for replacements for Ricciardi, by the way? – so it’s difficult to fully understand right now how his approach may differ from the Ricciardi years.

Most important, however, is that Anthopolous must make it clear he has no more interest in endlessly trying to replay 1992 and ’93 again.

Gotta cut those ties for good.

SpinPlus: Leafs lose second game of season

Leafs' home opener on SpinPlus