TORONTO (Oct. 22) — Never one to disappoint the conspiracy loonies out there, I am overdue in discussing your esteemed Maple Leafs after YET ANOTHER LOSS (two in a row at home by the way). What has suddenly befallen the impeccable planetary alignment of the early season? Better yet, when will Brian Burke finally unload Jason Blake… er, Kris Versteeg. Can you imagine that bum? Two breakaways, two flubs against the New York invaders this week. Time to tar and feather.
We are finding out — horror of horrors — that the Leafs may not be able to control all 82 appearances this season. Until Monday night, it was simply a matter of the boys in blue deciding to outplay the opposition. Now, we see that the opposition may exert some influence over a game now and then. We’ve also seen that the Leafs can lose when they have it (against the Islanders) and when they don’t (against the Rangers). Goal-scoring, on paper, appeared to be this club’s Achilles heel going into training camp. On the ice, no such deficit arose during the exhibition schedule, and the opening regular-season matches. Now, the well has begun to dry (two goals, two games, 55 shots). Is it a bump in the road or the beginning of a streak?
The powerplay — “scary-good” in the words of coach Ron Wilson late in the pre-season — has tailed off (0-for-5 against the Rangers). This, too, is hardly unexpected given the composition of the prime unit. As talented as Phil Kessel is, there’s no indication he will reverse his early-career pattern of disappearing once or twice every five games. The Leafs may be asking a bit much of Tyler Bozak, who has roughly one-half season of NHL experience, and is playing through a difficult hearing loss (his left ear-drum was partially torn when Kessel’s shot struck him on the side of the face Sunday). Versteeg, though an energetic, character-rich player, hasn’t been a front-liner until this season. Dion Phaneuf is assaulting the back-boards and end-glass with his inaccurate bombs from inside the point; he must hit the net more frequently. When that doesn’t happen, Tomas Kaberle is a virtual non-entity with the man-advantage.
The Leafs were hoping for a gorge of production from their No. 1 unit — an amount that would off-set, as much as possible, an anticipated lack of secondary scoring. Again… that’s an awful lot to ask over 82 games. To his credit, Wilson has shown no hesitation planting his go-to guys on the bench when he feels they underperform. He did it with Kessel last week in Pittsburgh and with Bozak on Thursday night against the Rangers. This shortage of leeway is important, given how critical the aformentioned are to the Maple Leafs. It may or may not work, but Wilson has no other choice.
He cannot turn, on a nightly basis, to a reliable secondary unit — not one centered by the Mystery Man [Mikhail Grabovski] and flanked by players [Clarke MacArthur/Nikolai Kulemin] that COMBINED for 32 goals last season. Wilson absolutely must pull every string in his repertoire to get the most out of Bozak, Kessel and Versteeg. He is doing that early in the schedule.
But, hey, in the end, do the Leafs really matter? Of course not. Instead, you should all be following The Master. My Stanley Cup picks [Boston and Detroit] are 8-2-1 so far and on a combined six-game victory streak. Their destiny, dear friends, is a foregone conclusion.
Hope you enjoyed this expected blog. Will my next one arrive after the Leafs game in Philadelphia Saturday night? All depends on the loss column.
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