you're back here?
well, i guess it's time for one of those leaf-talk things we do, eh?
forgive my general apathy, it seems to be arriving right in time for the annual leafs' mid-season slump.
wonder if there's some crossover there.
Just beyond the halfway point of the season, the Leafs face off for three matchups this week - two against southeastern wonders the winnipeg jets, and another against some penguin guys from pittsburgh? word on the street is they're pretty good.
with such a workload, one would hope for pretty good results for the boys in blue, right?
oh well.
just how bad did it get?
poor phil "the fill" has taken to camouflage on the streets to prevent
encounters with angry "leaf fans"
hit the jump and we'll talk about it. i'd advise drinking, but hey - it's not like we're watching an actual leaf game, right?
the week that was:
toronto came into the week having lost two in a row, but not on horrible terms, falling to the penguins in a shootout, and losing to the bruins by less than a touchdown.
the team flew into winnipeg on sunday for some crazy reason, given they weren't actually set to play until tuesday. how did the extra days of listening to the weakerthans and watching repeats of less than kind treat the leafs? well, not particularly well.
i hate winnipeg.
James ".917 SV% on the season" Reimer faced off against Ondrej "0.20 BAA" Pavelec.
this game was pretty sad. well, not sad, really - almost rage inducing?
i don't know - what's between sadness and anger?
anyway, the jets took off with an early goal by Antropov, banked in off his shinpads, and never looked back. there were a bunch of fights in the first, one of which involved both teams' captains. Kessel scored a pair somewhere along the way, but the leafs ended up losing this one by a final score of 5-2. fun was had by none, unless you count the "fans" in winnipeg, who very likely have a bunch of tucker and sundin jerseys in their closets at home, but will boo anything that moves. yeah. ugh. winnipeg.
shots on the night were 34-26 in favour of the jets.
Reimer was pulled with less than 10 remaining.
Dustin Byfuglien led all skaters in ice-time 25:38 (but, y'know, skated about 12 of those.) and picked up 3 assists on the night. former leaf nik antropov also had 3 points, a goal and an assist on the night. other former leaf, Kyle Wellwood, well... he got tired.
being a pro athlete is rough.
the leafs had just one night to figure out what went wrong before playing host to the penguins two nights later.
remember the last game against the penguins? a week ago saturday? well they're in toronto again.
so yes, the leafs last four games have been: pittsburgh at home, winnipeg on the road, pittsburgh at home, winnipeg at home... just in case you were looking for another reason the lockout sucked.
anyway, starters for this one were Ben "i'd rather not" Scrivens and Marc-Andre "can-you-lend-me-a-cup-of" Fleury.
this one was one of those dealies where the leafs hung with a better team for a long period of time and everybody thought it was going well. toronto outshot pittsburgh in the first, and after a goal by Tyler Bozak, headed to the second intermission with a one goal lead.
things continued looking good - Pittsburgh attained some momentum in the third, and managed to tie it up midway through the third when Pascal Dupuis would convert on a spiffy Crosby feed. it looked like toronto might hand on for overtime, but Dupuis seemed to disagree with that notion, and scored the game winner for the pens with just 2:10 remaining in the third.
the leafs tried that whole "pull your goalie and maybe you'll get lucky and score a goal thing" - they even had a powerplay during, but that didn't work, and the penguins scored an empty netter and won this one 3-1.
Shots on the night were 29-28 in favour of the leafs. (holy shishi)
Dion Phanuef led all skaters in icetime with 27:49
This leads up marquee match of the week, and - no, no... you aren't stuck in some sort of Groundhog Day hell, but it is the leafs facing off against the jets again.
Jets v. Maple Leafs - March 16th 2013
The theme for this week's game is military appreciation night!
so much fun!
Well, to be fair, it was certainly louder than normal, and not as hokey as it could have been, but HNIC definitely hammed it up a bit.
It came with super snazzy warm up jerseys though
look at all that swag.
so after the typical preamble, hooplah, blahblah, the puck was dropped.
changes in the leafs lineup for this one are pretty major, with David Steckel being traded out of town for picks earlier this week to make room for returning Joffrey Lupul. Nice, I guess. Kinda liked Steckel though - I think the threat of him lurking in shadows would have been great for next years winter classic and/or... playoffs?
look at that truculence. so sad to see all that cheap flying out the door.
Ben "four-years-at-Cornell" Scrivens and Ondrej "twenty-month-driving-ban" Pavelec are the starters for this one.
Things started off super hot for the Leafs as Joffrey Lupul, in his first game back for the Leafs since having his arm shattered by a caveman slapshot, scored the game's opening tally. Set up with Matt Frattin and Nazem Kadri early on, he converts on a sweet little pass from Kadri and sends a quick little back hander up and over Pavelec for the early lead.
oh, naz... you got some mittens.
Toronto maintained a whole lot of pressure on the Jets for the vast majority of this period when fists weren't flying, or silly penalties being called. Shortly after Lupul's goal, Colton Orr earned his paycheque by fighting Chris Thorburn. Before those two could even leave the box, a second fight (and/or third) fight broke out, with AHL-escapee Korbinian Holzer going crazy and attacking Evander Kane, trying to fight him, getting turned down, trying to return to play, then getting attacked by Zack Bogosian... Scrivens was involved somewhere in there too. No, seriously. Watch this thing, and try to figure out what happened.
this is just funny.
in germany helmet wear you.
So somehow in all of that, 18 minutes of penalty minutes were handed out, and the teams skated four aside for two minutes as Zack Bogosian and Phil Kessel (serving for Scrivens) each sat for unsportsmanlike conduct.
After all of that sorted it self out, the teams exchanged pairs of powerplays, with Hainsey (standing in front of a guy) and Miettinen (boarding) going to the box for the Jets and Lupul heading there twice himself for the Leafs; once for standing near someone, and another for a bit of a slewfoot/highstick hybrid - it was an eventful period for him.
At the end of 20, the Leafs headed to the dressing room up 1-0, outshooting their opponents 14-11.
I didn't watch Don Cherry this week... I don't think - maybe I did? His schtick runs together after awhile, no?
The second period started off, well... horribly? Yeah. Horrible's a pretty good way to do it, I'd say.
All of the energy and decisive play that they had exhibited in the first had disappeared.
The Jets ended up scoring four unanswered goals, to take a 4-1 lead. They looked like this:
wellwood, antropov with assists on this one.
ouch. so it's 1-1
i acknowledge this is legal, but what a greasy goal.
and with that piece of garbage, the thra-jets have a 2-1 lead. blake wheeler scores the next one, and they're up 3-1. youtube didn't like that goal, so i can't find it.
youtube doesn't exactly hate this one though.
and with that, from 5:29-15:29 of the second - a period of ten minutes, the leafs gave of 4 goals.
ouch.
they leafs had slowly begun to show signs of life, though - you'll note that they almost potted one right before that fourth jets goal. well, 3 minutes later the leafs would finally answer back with Nikolai Kulemin returning to the score sheet, snapping home a wicked wrister off a Jay McClement faceoff win.
pewpewpew
they wouldn't stop there though. Riding the momentum from Kulemin's goal Toronto picked up the steam and began producing some quality chances in Winnipeg's zone, and it wasn't long before Joffrey Lupul - remember him? Yeah, he was having a pretty good game - anyway, he'd make it 4-3 off of another Kadri feed with one minute left in the third.
i like this lupul guy.
so after falling down the stairs and hitting their head pretty hard early in the second, the Leafs managed to scrape back to within one heading into the second intermission. shots on the period were 15-8 in favour of Winnipeg.
Toronto returned to the ice for the third with James Reimer between the pipes, and a pretty loud ACC behind them. The period started much better for Toronto, and they attained a pretty solid amount of zone pressure, leading up to Phil Kessel tying it up at the five minute mark, taking a JVR feed from the
Leafs zone, streaking by everyone and roofing it on Pavelec.
yup, no heart here. no scoring either.
better trade this slouch.
after Toronto tied it up the pace finally slowed down a bit throughout the third, the teams likely trying to hang on for the overtime point. The Leafs had a couple of pretty solid chances, and generally took the play to Winnipeg for the duration of the period, but couldn't find the winner despite outshooting Winnipeg 7-5 - we were headed to overtime.
Toronto vastly outplayed the Jets in OT, outshooting them 3-2, but getting way more scoring chances than the line suggests. Phaneuf, Lupul, Kadri and Kessel all had solid chances. None of them converted though, and we were headed to a shootout.
Ugh.
Damned shootouts.
We're in for a doozy.
Neither of these teams has won a shootout this year.
The players and fans alike sat on the edge of their seats.
at least these guys could win a shootout.
Toronto elected to shoot first.
Normally I'd transcribe the shootout. It's just three dudes taking penalty shots and a bunch of people being excited about it. This though? This wasn't a regular shootout. This was 10 (!!!) agonizing rounds with 3 goals scored. There were more bars hit by players in the shootout than bars the next day. It was that bad. Blagh. Zack Bogosian eventually put us all out of our misery after round ten. After the Leafs had trotted our Franson, and Frattin, and Phaneuf... but y'know, no Grabovski. WTF, Ran-ran?
image courtesy somebody over at pensionplanpuppets.com
not sure who. i might have been intoxicated.
Here's the shootout, for interested parties.
reim-time in this one, eh?
so despite the harrowing effort to come back and get Uncle Gary's Loser Point, the Leafs still ended up dropping another game to Jets 2.0, allowing them to hang around the playoff race another week longer.
Shots on the evening were 33-32 for Winnipeg.
Scrivens was pulled, but didn't take the loss, despite his .846 SV%
Reimer, despite his 1.00 SV& did, because he let in a goal in a skills comp.
Byfuglien led all players in ice time again, with 31:18.
Dion Phaneuf lead the Leafs with 28:13
Well now - that week didn't go as well as hoped, did it?
Winnipeg really is one of the teams the Leafs had to start gaining some distance on in the coming weeks, and this doesn't really help them do so. The game Tuesday night was just an absolute clunker, and set a bad tone for the week. Picking up a win here would have been huge. Thursday against the Pens was painted as one of those "moral victory" sort of losses, but last I checked, there were still no points for these. The game was 10 minutes from overtime - that's where the loser points are. Getting there would have been great - for that game. Getting into overtime, and a terrible, no good, horrible shootout with the Jets is, again, a bit of a disappointment. Yay. Awesome - they clawed back and picked up the loser point. Winnipeg is not a team to be having these sorts of issues with, and it's unfortunate that's what's happened.
The continued deployment - or lack thereof - of Grabovski has been disappointing and doesn't really help. The first line minutes for Holzer don't really help. Orr getting third line minutes don't really help. I'm sure Randy-bobany Carlyle can take some credit for the improvement of some of Toronto's special teams, but he sucks at player usage, flat-out, and has to take some of the blame for this mini skid. I'd probably go so far as to say he should be canned, but I'm not holding by breath there. It's not as though he just started doing idiotic things - this goes back to him trotting Steckel out like the second coming of Lemieux for 20 games last season. It's been just as silly his year though, for instance using Grabbo And Orr like third liners - one's way better than that - and the other is Orr. It's pretty frustrating to watch. This Gardiner business on top of the rest of that? The signs are there - Nonis has to show this guy the door.
Toronto's penalty kill is continuing to run along at a great clip - currently 6th in the league at 84.9%... unfortunately the powerplay is only in 18th. Picking up some powerplay goals at some opportune times goes a long way to preventing games like Tuesday's from happening.
Odds and Sodds:
Buh-bye, Steckel:
As mentioned above, the Leafs shipped David Steckel out this week, to Anaheim, reuniting him with former coach Bruce Boudreau. I'm not a huge Steckel fan, but thought he was useful, if not expendable. It's true that McClement is currently filling his role, pretty deftly and for much cheaper, but let's face it. This move was a numbers move pure and simple to free up a roster space for the returning Joffrey Lupul. Sure, that spot shouldn't be held up by Steckel, but it probably shouldn't be held up by Orr and or Mclaren either - just saying.
#FreeJakeGardiner
You've probably heard about Jake Gardiner's agent starting a "twitter frenzy" with the hastag #FreeJakeGardiner after Tuesday's loss to the Jets. Media has hemmed and hawed about it over the course of the week, with reports ranging from rumours that the sophomore defenseman was to be jettisoned in the coming weeks, to suggestions he'd be in the lineup in the coming weeks.
Well, today the Leafs recalled Jake Gardiner and sent Korbinian Holzer to the minors.
This should have happened weeks ago, but that's neither here nor there.
The switch from Gardiner to Holzer instantly transforms Toronto's defense corps by providing
a quick puck moving option in the rear - something they've sorely lacked most of this season.
last known picture of steckel, wearing a pylon orange practice jersey.
mlse is getting real cheap, i guess.
Hopefully Gardiner is able to make Carlyle look a full for not promoting him much earlier very soon.
gardiner literally leapt from the ice and exited the marlies arena upon hearing the news.
So there we have it - this was a rough one for the Leafs, however you slice it. One would have hoped they'd have attained at least 3 points this week. One point in three games at this point in this season is a bit of a backslide, and now the Leafs find themselves in the middle of a 5-game skid.
The Week ahead is going to be a rough one.
Toronto had some time landlocked at chalkboards and scratch their heads, as they don't play until tomorrow night, hosting Tampa Bay. After Lecavalier and Co., head out of town, Ryan Miller and the feuding gang of bandits that are the Buffalo Sabres will play host to the Maple Leafs. Toronto will finish the week off by playing host to Zdeno Chara and the Boston Bruins Saturday night.
See?
This is why they call it Death March.
Southeast Opponent in town for a midweek game?
Ryan Miller?
The Boston Bruins?
All these things cause Toronto problems that would have been mitigated by picking up a point or two more last week. The Leafs enter the week with 32 points and in a three way tie for sixth with New Jersey and Winnipeg (ugh! see where these losses get you?). A three-way tie for 6th is also a three-way tie for 8th - the final playoff spot. It's also only 2 points ahead of potential sleeping giants, the New York Rangers. Hopefully Toronto can knock over Buffalo this week (they've had pretty good success in Buffalo this year), and pick up at least a point against Tampa (couldn't we have offer-sheeted Stamkos all that time ago?). I don't care what happens with Boston if the Leafs already have 3 points going into that game. Either way, with Lupul back and Gardiner finally in the lineup, things are at least looking up personnel-wise. Let's see where that gets us.
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