Alexander Ovechkin has been the subject of much media speculation the last few days, with some going so far as to suggest that his sagging ice time through game 2 of this series could . . . → Read More: How ‘Bout Them Capitals?]]> The buzzer just sounded to put an end to the 3rd period of game 3 between the Rangers and the Capitals.

Alexander Ovechkin has been the subject of much media speculation the last few days, with some going so far as to suggest that his sagging ice time through game 2 of this series could be foreboding of an off-season trade.

Ridiculous.

Ovechkin is a dominant player. Despite registering a playoff career low in ice time in game 2, he led all players with 10 shots attempted. Why he wasn’t used more remains a mystery.

The Capitals are not winning because of Dale Hunter’s coaching genius, they’re winning despite his complete ineptitude.

• He has failed to recognize when his superstar is “feeling it” and thus has not been adjusting his ice-time accordingly. When one of the top players in the world is tilting the ice towards the opponent with every shift, you need to pick up on that and continue to roll him out there.
• He has failed to use his weapons, for the most part. Going back to the Boston series, this was a team desperate for quality chances. Sitting on the bench in front of him are 4 players (Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, and Green) who have formed the core of one of the most dominant offensive groups in recent memory. I recognize that they can pose some defensive problems, but to not even give them the opportunity to rekindle the old magic, especially when trailing the Rangers in game 1, is unforgivable.
• His attempts at line-matching against the Rangers defensemen are laughable. The key to keeping Ovechkin away from Staal/McDonagh/Girardi is not to keep him on the bench forever; you need to double-shift him, move him around, put him out there offensive zone faceoffs following icing calls. In other words, he needs to feed Ovechkin ice-time when Tortorella has no ability to shift his defenders in response.

Postscript: Ron McLean…nice guy, complete idiot. He’s wondering why more NHL general managers aren’t former players? Ugh. Managing a hockey team requires a different skill set than playing hockey. That’s like wondering why more career criminals aren’t lawyers.

Certainly there have been some deplorable incidents thus far, but I think it’s necessary to try to categorize them. When I do so, I categorize them as “hockey-related” or “non-hockey-related”. A hockey-related incident would be . . . → Read More: Playoff Insanity]]> We’re one week into the playoffs and I’m not sure if we’re seeing more violence, or simply more media outcry.

Certainly there have been some deplorable incidents thus far, but I think it’s necessary to try to categorize them. When I do so, I categorize them as “hockey-related” or “non-hockey-related”. A hockey-related incident would be one that I, as someone who has played hockey, can understand happening due to the intensity and speed of the game, the thought process of the players, or any of a number of other reasons. All the rest would be non-hockey-related.

For example, the James Neal hit on Sean Couturier is hockey-related. It may have been late, it may have been charging, and it may have been a head-shot, but at least it evolves through the play. The same logic applies to Raffi Torres hitting Marian Hossa, and the Andrew Shaw hit on Mike Smith.

Conversely, the Aaron Asham incident with Brayden Schenn is not hockey related. The Shea Weber incident with Henrik Zetterberg is not hockey related.

If I were in charge of NHL discipline, I would want to be damn sure to draw a clear line in the punishment between the 2 categories. I don’t care about the injury that resulted, how important the accused is to his team or how important the victim is to his team, if you cross the line into Weber/Asham territory, I’m throwing the book at you. The suspensions would start at 10 games and escalated from there. And this bullshit of halving suspensions for the playoffs? I don’t think so, I’m doubling them. Or tripling them. If the playoffs are so important, you should have added incentive to not be an idiot.

Now, for the hockey-related incidents, the decision is trickier. You can tell when something happens incidentally, like Shaw hitting Smith. There was no obvious attempt by Shaw to hurt Smith, they simply collided. I’d suggest that without the theatrics from Smith, and the ridiculousness in the rest of the league, Shaw escapes punishment. Neal, on the other hand, may have hit Couturier innocuously, but he went on to hunt down Claude Giroux with a predatory shot to the head. I’d have given James Neal a 5 game suspension.

Other thoughts…

• I had the Kings picked to beat the Canucks…5 of my fantasy players are from the Kings (Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Williams, Carter).
• The hockey media (for the most part) is really pissing me off. I follow most of them on Twitter, and I really get the feeling that they’re hoping someone dies on the ice simply so they can stand on a higher soap box and let fly with their “I TOLD YOU SO!!!” columns that I’m sure they’ve all already written. I recognize that Twitter is for the dissemination of personal opinion as much as fact, but I’d rather most of these morons stuck to factual reporting.
• The NHL needs to implement a protocol for the review of egregious incidents. If the Torres/Hossa hit was so bad (again, I’m not convinced that it was), they should have a protocol in place to ensure that Torres cannot come back and score the game winning goal. I don’t know if that involves instant replay at the officials request, or intervention from the NHL War Room, but they definitely need to do something.

Vicious, right?

Now, let’s see this one.

Probably more vicious.

I’m 30 years old. As far as I can remember, the Maple Leafs have never been in such a sorry state.

There’s been plenty of speculation about who to blame, and . . . → Read More: Sad, Sad State of Affairs]]> As the Leafs continue their victory march in one of the greatest tank battles ever, I believe we’ve pretty much hit a low point.

I’m 30 years old. As far as I can remember, the Maple Leafs have never been in such a sorry state.

There’s been plenty of speculation about who to blame, and though I believe Brian Burke has done an admirable job overall, I believe he is the ultimate source of the failure. Throughout his tenure as the GM of the Leafs, Burke has failed to push towards a consistent goal, whether through personnel management, player acquisition, or media relations. When Burke came out and made it clear to the world that he wanted a team that would be tough to play against, most fans believed that would be a welcome change.

Then he went and acquired Phil Kessel. He drafted Nazem Kadri. He traded for a prospect named Jake Gardiner. Yes, he also acquired Dion Phaneuf and Mike Komisarek, 2 players who probably should fit the model, if not in reality at least in theory. Kessel, Kadri, and Gardiner, for all their talent and promise, are the complete antithesis to what Burke publicly stated he wanted.

When relieving Ron Wilson, a coach strangely suited to the kind of players Burke acquired, he replaced him with Randy Carlyle, a coach better suited to the values espoused by Burke 4 years ago. The problem is that he now has a coach that aligns with his commitment to tough, stingy defense and high-tempo fore-checking, he just doesn’t have players that can thrive in this system.

I still believe that Brian Burke is better than the average GM at evaluating talent. He’s come out on the winning end (talent wise) on almost every trade, and can be forgiven for the Kessel trade if approached from the viewpoint that Burke simply overestimated how good his starting base was.

If MLSE were to call me tomorrow and offer me a job overseeing the Maple Leafs, I’d have no problem leaving Burke in charge of the team. I would, however, instruct him that the goal here is to build a championship caliber team. I’m not naive enough to think that winning championships is the only barometer by which success can be measured; that simply doesn’t make sense in a league with 30 teams. But his goal is not to challenge for a playoff spot, not to win a few rounds every couple of years. The goal is to build a team that can compete consistently, year-over-year, with the best teams in the NHL. A team that is perennially mentioned as a Stanley Cup contender.

In that vein, it’s time to blow it up. Hold a patented Brian Burke press conference, admit defeat, and put out the new plan. We’re going to blow it up, it’s going to take 6-8 years, and that the end, we will be a championship caliber team. Then you trade every asset you have that is of no use to you in 6-8 years. That includes everyone on the entire roster with the exception of Gardiner, and maybe Matt Frattin and Nazem Kadri. Everyone else goes. You collect draft picks. With the exception of higher 1st round picks (top 15 or so), we’re looking for quantity over quality. Give me 3 6th round picks over 1 3rd round pick any day.

The first goal is a restocking of the farm system, at all positions. Then you move the Marlies out of Toronto. Having future Maple Leafs get their first taste of hockey in a city where every fan and scribe is asking if they’re the savior is not helping.

The road ahead will be long, but hopefully, if done right, it will bare fruit at the end.

Consider the following.

It’s really hard to put any analysis of Burke into the proper perspective because most people in the hockey world have very narrow definitions of success. By most traditional metrics, his tenure as the GM . . . → Read More: Thoughts on Burke]]> I took up Howard Berger on his Twitter request for feedback on Burke. It’s rather rambly, but such is life.

It’s really hard to put any analysis of Burke into the proper perspective because most people in the hockey world have very narrow definitions of success. By most traditional metrics, his tenure as the GM has been a failure.

I’ll concede that he hasn’t been terribly successful by pretty much any metric, but one has to recognize the overwhelmingly bad position Burke was put in. He took the reins of a team almost 100% devoid of talent. There was very little in the way of talented players on the roster, and there wasn’t much coming up through the system either. In a way, the Leafs (and teams like them, chiefly the Rangers) were the worst victims of the salary cap. Their pre-lockout strategy had been to trade youth and potential for experience and talent. That left the cupboards bare. The Rangers were lucky to have had a world-class goalie in the system already, the Leafs not so much.

To look at the Leafs of today, a young team with some promise (certainly not future world beaters, but some promise), you have to give a lot of the credit to Burke. I don’t think he’d make the Kessel trade again, knowing what he knows now, but it’s hard to argue that it was a bad move at the time. Burke (as did many others) thought the team was a borderline playoff team, not one of the worst in the league.

Without continuing to ramble, he’s made some good moves, and some bad moves. I think the good outweigh the bad sufficiently that Burke has earned the opportunity to keep going forward. I would suggest that he be a little more forthcoming with the media (and thus the fans) with respect to “the plan”, but that’s purely his prerogative.

James Reimer has yet to see the ice under new head coach Randy Carlyle, and with Gustavsson starting today in Washington, he will have twice . . . → Read More: The Monster Audition]]> Jonas Gustavsson will be an unrestricted free agent at year’s end, and all signs are pointing to the Leafs giving the Monster the rest of the season to prove himself.

James Reimer has yet to see the ice under new head coach Randy Carlyle, and with Gustavsson starting today in Washington, he will have twice competed in back-to-back situations.

As a fan, this thrills me. Ron Wilson refused to give either goalie the reigns. Frankly, I believe Gustavsson is the better goalie, and the right choice long-term. If we could get him away from Francois Allaire, there’s a good chance that he could become a top-flight NHL goalie.

Giving Gustavsson this opportunity is perhaps the best thing the Leafs have done all year.

Their season is effectively over, as they would have to go on a very un-Toronto-like run to qualify for postseason play.

Naturally, a promising looking rush goes offside at the Penguins blue-line.

Game over, Leafs lose. Again.

This will mark the 7th consecutive year that . . . → Read More: The Retchedness]]> There’s 1:00 left in the Leafs game against the Penguins.

Their season is effectively over, as they would have to go on a very un-Toronto-like run to qualify for postseason play.

Naturally, a promising looking rush goes offside at the Penguins blue-line.

Game over, Leafs lose. Again.

This will mark the 7th consecutive year that the Leafs miss the playoffs, though to be fair it’s only the 6th season in that stretch. Gord Miller just informed me that if the Florida Panthers make the playoffs, the Leafs will be left holding the “most seasons without a playoff game” trophy.

The Leafs already hold the record for most seasons without a Stanley Cup victory, though technically they’re tied with the Kings and Blues, at 43 seasons.

They also hold the record for most seasons without a Stanley Cup Final appearance, also at 43 seasons.

We are truly abysmal.

It’s about damn time.

Wilson was the least likeable coach that I can remember. He was horrible with the media, and it’s obvious from where I’m sitting that his personality was at odds with that of his team. . . . → Read More: Wilson on the Outs]]> Word is breaking that Ron Wilson is out as the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It’s about damn time.

Wilson was the least likeable coach that I can remember. He was horrible with the media, and it’s obvious from where I’m sitting that his personality was at odds with that of his team. Wilson is a crotchety old man. The Leafs have assembled a young core of good players, who seem to genuinely enjoy playing in Toronto. I’ve been a big fan of the way the young Leafs are getting together with the young Blue Jays core. They’re constantly going back and forth on Twitter, and seem like good guys. Wilson is the anti-good-guy.

Speculation is that Randy Carlyle will be the replacement. I’m not sure that he’ll be any better than Wilson, though he certainly couldn’t be worse.

I, for one, would have liked to have seen Dallas Eakins of the Toronto Marlies take the reigns. Eakins is younger, seems more friendly, and has built a rapport with the younger players as the coach of the Marlies.

Let’s hope that this can pull the Leafs out of their tailspin and back into the playoff race.

My words cannot do this justice…from the Timmins Times, courtesy of Deadspin.

The senior coach spoke to one of the boys and suggested his mother was wearing too many different shades of lipstick. The coach joked that his penis was beginning to look . . . → Read More: Proud Northerner!]]> Rarely have I been so proud to be from the Timmins area.

My words cannot do this justice…from the Timmins Times, courtesy of Deadspin.

The senior coach spoke to one of the boys and suggested his mother was wearing too many different shades of lipstick. The coach joked that his penis was beginning to look like a rainbow. As several of the young players laughed at that remark, the coach asked the boy if he ever went into his mother’s room. The coach said he forgot his underwear in the mother’s room and needed someone to go get it. The laughter continued, the report said.