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THE DREAM IS OVER, NOW LET’S LOOK AT REALITY |
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In the end, it was not a great set up by Niklas Backstrom or a meteor-like blast from the stick of Alexander Ovechkin that drove the final nail in the Maple Leafs coffin, it was the out-of-town scoreboard at the Air Canada Center that said “Buffalo 4 Tampa Bay 2”. In spite of a heroic performance of James Reimer, Toronto lost 3-2 to the Washington Capitals after Reimer allowed the only goal in the shootout by Mike Knuble.
Over the last few weeks, the result of each game involving Buffalo, New York and Carolina has been akin to a painful death by 1000 paper cuts, but if this were an episode of “Quincy”(my generation's answer to CSI), the true cause of death would have been determined to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; in the form of a month-long string of losing from mid-October to mid-November that saw Toronto go 1-8-3.
What has to be on the agenda of GM Brian Burke and his management team is the correct path of how and where to make improvements to get this team into the postseason next year. In his first off-season, Burke miscalculated how far away his team was from being competitive, adding only veteran defenseman Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin and making the deal for Phil Kessel before the season. After a horrific first half, Burke recognized the team’s inadequacies and completed trades that brought in Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Dion Phaneuf, but that was not enough to prevent the team from finishing in 29th place.
Last off-season brought the trade for Kris Versteeg and the free-agent signings of Colby Armstrong and Brett Lebda, but the team still spiraled downward for most of the first half of the season and the additions of Versteeg and Lebda turned out to be missteps.
The lesson that hopefully has been learned is not to overestimate the value of a successful second half that will prevent the needed upgrades from being made. There will be minimal changes between the pipes and on the blue line, with at most a backup goaltender and mobile defenseman being added.
The area that is most in need of improvement is at forward. Besides the well-known need for a front line center/top six forward, the lower lines have their own set of problems.
There are four players (Tyler Bozak, Darryl Boyce, Joey Crabb and Tim Brent) who possess similar skill sets, similar stature, are about the same age and all are free agents this summer.
With the possibility of Nazem Kadri and Joe Colborne being ready next year and the possibility of other forwards being added by trade or free agency, there should be only room on this roster for maybe two of them next year and that is with the full realization of how well they performed down the stretch.
The Leafs take on the Devils tonight in Newark.
Follow me on Twitter: @mikeinbuffalo
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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