Begging For Dismissal

Saw this once with the late Pat Burns back in March, 1996. Nobody knows when its all over faster than the head coach, and after a game in Denver against the Avalanche, Burns' basic reaction was a shrug of "what-can-I-do?"

He knew it was over. On the flight home, it was.

That's what Ron Wilson looked like last night after his team's ninth loss in 10. The fact that he seemed to lob a soft note of discontent at GM Brian Burke, noting sourly that the team "did nothing" at the trade deadline, just seemed to accentuate the overall impression that Wilson knows he's getting fired and has no new answers to turn this team around.

But he remains the head coach of the Leafs, and this is where the legendary stubborness of Burke, the same stubborness that insisted Dan Cloutier could lead Vancouver to the promised land when he could not, begins to switch from asset to liability.

There's still time for the Leafs to make the post-season. There's no downside at this point to letting another voice take over. The worst that could happen would be the team would disintegrate further and get a top five draft pick.

A team that made a reputation in recent years of starting slow and ending (too late) with a rush has now done the opposite, playing a cruel trick on Leaf fans. But its a young team with a future, and a team that might very well respond to a quick change of leadership.

Can't think of a GM who has so loyally stood behind a coach he didn't even hire. Burke's long-term friendship with Wilson has something to do with that, as does his general distaste/reluctance for firing coaches in general and firing them in mid-season specifically.

But Leaf fans, those who love this team and pay good money to see it play, deserve at least the sense that every option has been explored to get the team back to post-season play for the first time since 2004.

Burke could go interim coach, with assistant Scott Gordon the likely option since he has NHL coaching experience. Or he could reach out to another trusted former colleague, Randy Carlyle, and let him take over for the remainder of the season, although he'd have to commit to a multi-year contract on that. The only reluctance to hiring Carlyle might be his prickly nature with the media, something Burke has identified as a key factor in Wilson's inability to gain popularity in Toronto.

Me, I think it had more to do with all the lost hockey games.

Going interim has the advantage of being able to look at all candidates this summer. Going with Carlyle now has the advantage of being able to start on next year now.

There's no advantage in simply running the same play over and over for no gain.

 

For more, go to: DIMANNO: Leafs have no excuse for embarrassing effort 'Fire Wilson,' fans chant as Leafs fall to Panthers Five questions: Leafs turn to Gustavsson to end five-game tailspin

No More Whining

So the big mean bogeyman is gone.

No more nasty old trade deadline talk to have the Maple Leafs cowering under their beds. As it turned out, only Keith Aulie had anything to fear, and that outcome has him calling Tampa home today. Not so bad, right?

Even if you buy the iffy proposition that the deadline has this great impact on the Leafs that it doesn't have on teams in other intense hockey markets, it matters not any longer because the time for trading has past.

The season didn't end on Monday at 3 p.m.

The time for showing us what you've got is upon us.

Twenty games for the Leafs to prove whether they're good enough to play in the second season for the first time since 2004. Very doable if they get back to playing hockey, if they begin to again resemble that team that walked into Ottawa a few weeks back and hammered the hometown Senators.

Remember that team?

Time for Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul to prove their seasons weren't flukes, for Dion Phaneuf to find some consistency, for Mikhael Grabovski to demonstrate he's worthy of a big new contract and for Luke Schenn to put it all behind him and show his pedigree.

What the Leafs as a group, from coaches to players, do have to fear is the consequences should their play of the past few weeks continue. 

Its up to them to write the script. Ron Wilson can blame the media, the deadline, fatigue or bad oysters, whatever he wants, but the proof will be in the results.

If he can't coach this team into the post-season, he needs to be replaced. Pure and simple.

Ditto for the players. Time to stand and deliver.

No more whining or excuses. In the end, you will be what your record says you are.

Positional Preference

Sure Keith Aulie disappointed the Maple Leafs. If he didn't regress, he didn't progress, either. With multiple chances to play in the NHL this season, he couldn't stick.

But more to the point, Brian Burke and Co. felt they were dealing from a position of depth chart strength in moving Aulie to Tampa for winger Carter Ashton, son of longtime NHLer Brent Ashton.

As NHL prospects, Aulie and Ashton are about equal, just different positions, and the Leafs have a greater need for forwards. Ashton's a tall, strong skater, not a big scorer, and the question is whether he'll have the grit to play in the NHL.

"We feel we have some depth on D and we needed some size and foot speed up front," said Burke. "Our scouts have been pushing me on this guy for a while."

That turns out to be the biggest deal of the day for the Leafs, who will go forward with young defencemen Luke Schenn, Jake Gardiner, Carl Gunnarson, Korbinian Holzer and Jesse Blacker.

The Leafs were interested in Rick Nash, but for the past few days Burke felt they were on the outside looking in, and the Leaf GM wasn't interested in building a package of four pieces or more around Gardiner.

Centre Mikhail Grabovski also wasn't moved, and it appears the Leafs are closing in on a new contract with the second-line pivot. In the end, the Leafs basically either chose to stand pat or couldn't do more.

"Some people will be disappointed in that but I'm not," said Burke, who said he is so convinced the trade deadline causes such trouble in Toronto that he may do as he does at Christmas and institute a trade freeze 10 days before the league deadline.

The Leafs also added minor league defenceman Mark Fraser from Anaheim.

 

 

 

Standing Pat?

It won't be easy for Brian Burke to sell a show about nothing.

Or at least a trade deadline about nothing.

Certainly, Burke and his front office colleagues with the Leafs are trying to make something happen, from Rick Nash to a goalie to any number of things.

But the kind of trades Burke wants to make - players for players, not just taking futures for players - may just not fit the kind of moves that will occur today.

There's also logic behind doing nothing if you're Burke.

Look, there's always the theory that you're never as good as you seem to be when all is rolling along, and not as bad as you seem when the losses are piling up. Applied to the Leafs, they weren't the best team in the NHL when they sat first overall last autumn, and Burke now believes the team is better than it has shown over the last miserable three weeks.

Starting Tuesday night against Florida, the Leafs can hope the team will start getting back to where it was last month.

Meanwhile, around the league not a great deal is happening, with Andrei Kostitsyn to Nashville the only deal of the day. Montreal received a second rounder and a conditional pick for Kostitsyn, who will be reunited with brother Sergei in Tennessee. The deal brings to an end one of the most disappointing runs for a talented player with the Habs. The Habs kept hoping Kostitsyn would turn into a big-time, consistent points producer, and he never did.

Outside of that deal, deathly quiet is how some have described it so far.

If there's nothing to make happen, there may be no sense in trying to force it.

Not that this is the message Leaf Nation wants to hear. . . 

 

Last Day of Shopping

Sure the Maple Leafs are getting some nibbles.

How about a deal involving Marcel Mueller of the Marlies? Does that get your blood flowing?

If not Mueller, who has attracted some interest in a minor-type deal, maybe Nicolas Deschamps after his big day on Sunday, and given that Deschamps was acquired by the Leaf organization this season in a deal with Anaheim for Luca Caputi, well, that's sort of trade deadline day material.

Okay, we're reaching.

But after a flurry of interesting deals last week - Jeff Carter to L.A., Marek Zidlicky to New Jersey, Steve Downie to the desert - things got very, very quiet on the weekend, unless you're a member of the Ben Bishop family or, of course, a big Ottawa Senators fan who must think this is one magical season.

Make no mistake about it; the Leafs are open for business. The challenge will be, however, that the kind of trades they're interested in making - hockey trades, to use the common phrase - may not be out there. In other words, deals that aren't about moving a player for distant futures. Brian Burke could probably be coaxed into moving defenceman Luke Schenn, but it would be for another young player currently skating on an NHL roster, not a pick and a 19-year-old, former second round pick labouring in the USHL.

So we'll see. There may not be enough sellers to fuel the market today, but then again, we say that every year and by 3 p.m. sure as Andy Sutton will get suspended again there's been 20 or more deals.

Hope Mueller didn't buy a house in Toronto. . . 

 

 

Misery

Can't think it's much fun to wake up as part of the Toronto management team today.

Ouch. With new ownership taking over this summer, suddenly another non-playoff campaign could start to make folks squirm.

The key to making good decisions over the next 24 hours or so, however, lies in understanding all is not lost even if a playoff position may not be in the cards.

This is an improved team that has a good, if not great, group of young players and prospects.

That doesn't change if the playoffs aren't realized. Or, at least, it doesn't have to change.

Cooler heads need to prevail in Leafland going toward's Monday's trade deadline, although it seems likely there may be several moves afoot by Brian Burke and his braintrust. The club may shift into sell mode, depending on what's being offered. While trading this summer's first round pick was a very real possibility two weeks ago, it would now be a very dangerous move considering it may become a lottery pick over the final weeks of the season.

It certainly can't be moved for short-term help. It makes no sense, for example, to move it for a goalie who might help you for a year or two.

As part of a Rick Nash deal? Maybe, if only because Nash is 27 and under contract for another six years.

Beyond that pick, if the Leafs are going to move Luke Schenn or Clarke MacArthur or Nik Kulemin, they can only do it for young players either currently playing in the league or about to play. Not for second round picks. Maybe for first rounders.

It can't be an Alexei Ponikarovsky-for-Luca Caputi deal, a proven NHLer for a minor-league who may or may not graduate to the NHL.

Now a thought on the coach.

Ron Wilson is probably still a good NHL coach. Just not in Toronto.

When he was hired after stints in small hockey markets like Anaheim, Washington and San Jose, a big question was how he would handle the media pressure in Toronto.

Well, over four years, the answer is not well. He has his good days, like a week ago in Vancouver when he held court and was funny, entertaining and informative.

But most of the time the Toronto media just bugs him, and that has become part of the agenda for the hockey club.

When Wilson talked after last night's loss to Washington about how all the trade speculation around the deadline was affecting his young team, that's just setting up an easy excuse for a player to grab on to.

Wilson feels the media heat and is bugged by it. So he assumes everyone else is.

Now it's part of the Leaf team mindset, as if 29 other NHL clubs aren't facing the very same rumours and very same trade deadline.

Its like Wilson talking last week and this week about how tired his team is. After a while, its a self-fulfilling prophesy. The Leafs looked tired against the Caps on Saturday night, so much so that team officials were shocked by the perceived lack of effort.

The coach says the team is tired and bothered by outside distractions. And just like that, that's how they play.

 

 

 

Deadline Deals Underway

So the Philadelphia Flyers were so convinced that the duo of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter were absolutely killing their chances to succeed that last summer they shipped Richards to L.A. and Carter to Columbus, two players they had once so believed in that both were signed to massive long-term deals.

And now the Kings have reunited them again, apparently believing that Richards and Carter are precisely the combination to stop the team's slide and juice up the NHL's worst offence.

All this in less than a year. But either Philly is right and the Richards/Carter combination won't produce a winner, or L.A. is right and these two belong together.

With four days left in the NHL shopping season, and with the bodies already flying, the trade that sent Carter to L.A. in exchange for defenceman Jack Johnson and a first round pick was about the biggest deal we can expect.

Well, unless Carter's former teammate, Rick Nash, gets moved.

Defenceman Kyle Quincey, Nicklas Grossman, Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill have been traded in the past week, as have forwards Antoine Vermette, Dominic Moore and Steve Downie. Now add Carter and Johnson to that group, and you already start to wonder whether this is the beginning of a gigantic swap meet, or whether by Monday we'll have anything left to talk about.

With the Carter/Johnson trade, it surely makes sense from the Columbus end. They desperately wanted to get out from under Carter's mammoth contract, essentially admitting they goofed last summer when they peddled viable assets to the Flyers to get the goal-scoring centre. In Johnson, they get a young blueliner already with his third NHL club (Carolina, L.A.), a player with lots of flash and dash but lots of holes. In Columbus, Johnson will get to be the kingpin of the blueline, something he was never going to be in L.A. as long as Drew Doughty was around. We'll see if Johnson flourishes in his new marquee role.

Still, this is exactly the kind of deal the Blue Jackets need to make; quality for quality, as opposed to quantity for quality. That said, Johnson has six years left on his $30 million deal, so in some ways they've taken on another problematic contract for one they shipped out the door.

Now we'll see if GM Scott Howson can do the same type of deal for Nash, or whether the Jackets are now less motivated now to make that transaction happen.

Less understandable, in some ways, is the Kings' end of Thursday night's trade. Obviously, GM Dean Lombardi believes the team needs instant offence, and Carter proved this week he can still score with a hat trick against San Jose. At the same time, the Kings aren't a team that's close to winning it all, yet after moving prospect Colton Teubert and a first rounder last year to Edmonton to get underachieving Dustin Penner, they've now made a similarly aggressive move to get a similar type player, enigmatic and erratic, although Carter has a far better resume.

Lombardi is often criticized by his peers for being too cautious and afraid to make bold moves at the right times. Well, trading for Penner and Carter were bold moves indeed, and Kings fans can only hope the latter acquisition will be less flawed than the former. That said, Lombardi and assistant GM Ron Hextall both have close ties to the Flyers; its hard to believe that the players deemed poison by Philly are now the elixir for success in Los Angeles.

It immediately spawned speculation, meanwhile, that Kings captain Dustin Brown could be on the trading block, and if he is available, expect Leafs GM Brian Burke to put in a bid as Brown's a kid he just loves.

With his club now having lost seven of eight and having finally fallen out of the final Eastern Conference playoff berth, the heat is on Burke to do something to both halt the slide and get his team into the post-season.

He's made it clear head coach Ron Wilson isn't going anywhere. Burke is looking for a goaltender - hard to say how James Reimer's performance in Thursday's loss to San Jose affects that picture - and clearly needs to do something of significant to shuffle the bodies on his roster. it could be bringing in bodies, or it could be shipping out players, with Luke Schenn and Clarke MacArthur at the top of that list.

Burke wasn't interested in Carter, but Brown would be another matter entirely. That despite the fact Brown is American-born, and Burke is surprisingly sensitive about the criticism he's been getting for his team being too U.S.-centric.

Meanwhile, he'll have to discern whether Columbus is still serious about moving Nash, and what it would take to make that happen. 

Losing just makes it harder to make a big deal. Other GMs can smell the desperation.

 

 

 

 

Contagion

These days, it seems like the NHL teams that don't have goaltending problems are in the minority.

The list of those with goalie woes is long. Chicago. San Jose. Buffalo. Tampa Bay. And, of course, the Maple Leafs.

Its just a question of how these teams, specifically their coaches, prefer to talk about them.

Dale Hunter, possibly the one-year coach of the Washington Capitals, wasn't about to sugar-coat anything after the Caps fell behind Ottawa 4-0 on Wednesday night en route to yet another stupifying defeat. Goalie Tomas Vokoun, who seemed like a canny acquisition by GM George McPhee last summer, was the object of Hunter's displeasure.

“Tomas would like a few of them back,” Hunter told the Washington Post. “He wasn’t as sharp as he should have been, and it’s in the back of our net.”

“We need some big stops early, that’s part of the game. Tonight we played a good, solid road game and we lose. . .Goaltending is a big part of the game and we need good goaltending.”

Not exactly putting Vokoun on a spit, but some coaches wouldn't even go that far. There seems to be an unwritten rule that no matter how many smelly ones go in, you don't admit your goalie couldn't stop a beachball. Broadcasters often go along with it, saying a goalie "would like that one back" - wouldn't they want them all back? - or desperately searching for a pebble on the ice that might have redirected the puck even a fraction of a millimetre.

Maybe that's how you save the confidence of netminders. Or maybe its payback for the nights when they're abandoned back there.

To me, honesty works best. Fans aren't stupid. They have eyes, and they have opinions. 

Sure it's a tough position to play. My kid's a goalie. I know the heartache.

But pretending doesn't change anything. So kudos to Hunter. He may be back in the OHL with the London Knights next season after a forgettable stint with the Caps (who still may grab a playoff berth) but good on him for speaking the truth.

 

 

 

The Big Disconnect

 

This thing is now a lot bigger than Jonas Gustavsson's gigantic error Tuesday night in overtime, or his future as a Maple Leaf.

That's because the Leafs are now in the midst of a full-blown goalie crisis that isn't likely to blow over by Monday's trade deadline if nothing is done.

While Leaf management continues to kick the tires on Rick Nash - and continues to be stunned by the demands of the Blue Jackets, which are believed to start with Jake Gardiner plus at least two of the team's best Marlie prospects - the Leafs are also now officially scouring the goalie market looking at all options that may be available. That, of course, might mean that assets used to pitch for Nash might be needed to buy a netminder.

Really, the club has only two choices.

Hand the crease to James Reimer and hope he can recalibrate, regain his confidence and summon the beast that was so good down the stretch last year, albeit in games that weren't pressure-packed like they are now.

Or get somebody else as a short-term solution to stop the bleeding. Nikolai Khabibulin, Evgeni Nabokov, whoever. Khabibulin has another year left at $3.75 million, a paycheque the Leafs would find unappealing but may have to look at. There's no interest in Marty Turco, currently blocking shots in Europe. L.A.'s Jonathan Bernier is as much an unknown as an NHL starter as the Leaf goaies. Josh Harding in Minnesota is a possible option, but he's never been a starter. No chance that if the Sabres decide to trade Ryan Miller either now or later it will be to a divisional rival. Jaroslav Halak has been a starter, but he has two years left at $3.75 million and it seems unlikely St. Louis would let him go with that team gearing up for a possible spring run.

What about the Marlies? Interestingly, that's a very good defensive team being coached by Dallas Eakins with 133 goals allowed in 54 games. Only one AHL team has allowed fewer.

But the Marlie goalies haven't been anything better than good. Ben Scrivens has been up and down ever since returning from the Leafs, Mark Owuya is just a raw rookie and Jussi (The Bus) Rynnas is currently trying to get his game together with the ECHL Reading Royals.

So no answers at Ricoh.

While the goalie question burns, there's a sense the Leafs have not quite ruled out being a bidder for Nash, but almost. Talks with Columbus haven't progressed at all, and reports around the league suggest Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson is telling teams he can just wait until June to make a deal and doesn't have to move now. 

Indeed, it seems unlikely any team will be willing to pay the cost that Howson is demanding, making it more and more likely Nash will stay put beyond the deadline.

As far as the Leaf goalies, meanwhile, many fingers are being pointed at goaltending coach Francois Allaire, who won a Stanley Cup with Burke and J.S. Giguere in Anaheim, but who has no shortage of critics, most of who criticize his "cookie cutter" approach to goaltending.

To be fair, nobody was criticizing Allaire when Reimer was playing splendidly last season, and certainly Allaire didn't instruct Gustavsson to leave his net and redirect a puck going wide in for the winning New Jersey goal on Tuesday. 

The Allaire approach is less about athleticism and more about percentages, but some criticize it as too rigid. The goalie guru held a rare media conference on Wednesday to try and explain what has happened to the team's netminding.

Allaire's system might work more effectively in Toronto if married with a more defensive team approach. Instead, Wilson is preaching a go-go, run-and-gun style, exposing two inexperienced goalies struggling to master a technique ill-fitted for the type of shots they're facing. Plus, it's all happening in Toronto where the glare of scrutiny can be harsh indeed.

You're not going to get the goalies to change styles, at least not this season. You could play a tighter style, but Wilson and Burke have shown no interest in doing that, although Burke's Cup ring from Anaheim came from a hardnosed, defence-first approach that hasn't been transferred to Toronto.

So the problem isn't just the two goalies, or Allaire, or the team's style of hockey.

Its all of them. Its not a formula for success. Problem is, Burke has married himself to Allaire and Wilson, and even if he wanted to change his goalies now, he may not be able to with the trade deadline on Monday.

 

Ten Days in the Life of Milos

To celebrate, Milos Raonic got to hop on a red-eye flight to Memphis.

Such is the life of a professional tennis player, one in which over the course of slightly more than a week the 21-year-old from Thornhill has competed for his country, suffered an apparently serious knee injury that made him unable to play for his country, found the diagnosis was wrong and instead wouldn't prevent him from defending his ATP title won last year in San Jose, fought his way to the final and then defeated Denis Istomin on Sunday to capture his second tournament of the year.

Then jetted off to Memphis, a competition which he almost won last year, losing in the final to Andy Roddick.

Yep, it's been crazy for the Maple Leaf Missile, who didn't drop serve once in winning a tournament in Chennai, India last month then upped the ante a little more in San Jose, beating Istomin 7-6, 6-2 while losing only four points on serve.

"SCARY," tweeted veteran tennis commentator Patrick McEnroe.

Not only is Raonic on a roll after fearing he might have a serious knee injury last weekend in Vancouver, but he's clearly proving that his rise to as high as No. 25 in the world is no fluke.

In defeating the likes of Jankko Tipsarevic, Julien Benneteau, Ryan Harrison, Kevin Anderson and Istomin already this season, Raonic has made it clear he's a top 25 player when healthy.

So how high can he go?

Well, again, it depends on his health, and his retired in a couple of tour matches over the past 14 months and pulled out of Davis Cup twice, including last Sunday in B.C. when he was slated to face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France but didn't after learning an MRI on his left knee had revealed a tear that could be damaged further if he'd played.

Instead, he had it checked out again in San Jose, found the initially diagnosis was faulty, and happily went off and won the tournament.

But if he stays healthy, his spectacular serve - arguably the most lethal in the world right now - should allow him to consistent pick up ATP points and vault up the rankings. Suddenly, top 10 doesn't look impossible.

San Jose was a smaller tournament, and the next big one is next month in Indian Wells, California, followed soon after by the Sony Ericsson event in Miami and then the European clay court season.  

He's solidified vulnerable areas of his game, particularly his return of serve, and now his serve seems that much more destructive. Istomin seemed to visibly wilt as it became more and more clear over the course of the San Jose final that not only had he little chance to break Raonic's serve, he could barely get a point.

For Memphis, Raonic is the No. 4 seed behind John Isner, Andy Roddick and Radek Stepanek. He opens the competition with a tricky first round match against talented but engimatic Ernests Gulbis of Latvia.