TORONTO (Oct. 18) – Given how frightfully the Maple Leafs are performing in the first month of the season, it would seem almost absurd to focus the electron microscope – as Ron Wilson puts it – on a single player, or position. The entire team has bought into this decay and the wide turn toward respectability won’t be made unless the overwhelming majority of those wearing blue and white find vast improvement in their game.
That said, there is an undeniable and debilitating factor tearing at this club, and it has no chance of recovering without dramatic reversal. The Leafs, quite simply, haven’t gotten a big, important save from one of their goalies in the first seven games. Well, maybe one… Vesa Toskala made a difficult pad stop in the waning moments of regulation against Montreal, lengthening the season opener to extra time. Otherwise, it’s been an absolute horror show between the pipes for the Maple Leafs, and there isn’t a team at any level of hockey that can overcome disability at that key position.
In blog after blog this past summer, I insisted that all of Brian Burke’s trades and free agent signings would be offset by a continuation of futility in goal. Toskala appeared to provide some genuine encouragement for Leaf fans after undergoing a course of off-season surgery, but his biggest problem could be north of the shoulders. Joey MacDonald is a friendly, confident chap that held the No. 1 role with the National Hockey League’s worst team last season on Long Island. If he sticks around long enough with the Blue & White, another 30th-place finish isn’t out of the question. As such, it may well be that the Leafs’ 2009-10 fortunes are squarely on the shoulders of a virtual unknown to the NHL
Rookie Jonas Gustavsson – aggressively lured from his native Sweden over the summer – appears to be the club’s only hope right now.
The Monster, as he is known, has been rather sickly in the early going. A scary bout of arterial fibrillation in the first week of training camp led to a cardiac procedure that shelved him for 10 days. He then replaced a staggering Toskala after one period of the Leafs’ first road game in Washington, only to aggravate a groin-muscle pull. In his ever-so-brief appearances, however, Gustavsson showed the poise and maneuverability that made him the top-ranked goalie in Europe last year, and that lifted Burke to elite status on SAS Scandinavian Airlines over the summer. Given the psycho-trauma that Toskala has encountered, and MacDonald’s rank as a desperation stop-gap, The Monster would appear to be all that’s left between an upswing for the Maple Leafs and a terrible humiliation at the NHL Draft next June.
As it stands, Gustavsson will not be fit for action until part-way through the Leafs’ up-coming road trip to Vancouver, Anaheim, Dallas, Buffalo and Montreal. MacDonald will almost certainly face the Canucks next Saturday, with Gustavsson possibly being ready for the club’s visit to Disneyland two days later.
Another option would be for Burke to put in a call to old pal Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who has twice appeared for Anaheim this season, but could ultimately find himself rotting on the end of the Ducks’ bench in favor of Jonas Hiller. To accommodate the bulk of Giguere’s $6-million salary – assuming he can work out a deal with Bob Murray, his former assistant – Burke would first have to waive Toskala and, perhaps, underachieving veteran Jason Blake. Both contracts, should they survive the waiver process, could then be transferred to the Marlies of the American Hockey League – paid in full by the Maple Leafs, but no longer a burden to the club’s cap arrangement. After all, such a move – though cold-hearted – was repeatedly threatened by Burke during the summer months.
Whatever direction he chooses, the Leafs’ GM has to know there is zero chance for his club to make in-roads with its current lot between the pipes. There may be few legitimate reasons for highly-paid athletes to lapse into despair before 19,000 on-lookers, but crappy goaltending in hockey is certainly among them. Henrik Lundqvist beat the Leafs and their fans into emotional submission on Saturday night, as others have before him. It was clear in every tentative move the Toronto players made against the Rangers, and it induced vitriolic chagrin among the normally-sedate denizens of the Air Canada Centre.
This doesn't completely absolve the position players. Forwards have rarely been within radar distance of opposition nets so far this season. And, the Leafs' best defenseman has been Mike Van Ryn.
But, the overall trend will continue, unabated, until Burke finds himself a man that can effectively move between puck and mesh.
The gangly Monster would seem to be his only salvation.
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