2007/08 Projections

Below are projections for the upcoming season for the Leafs, from The Hockey News Ultimate Pool Guide 2007-08. Last year they predicted the Calgary Flames would win the Stanley Cup, with Jarome Iginla winning the Conn Smythe. So, take it for what you will.

Nik Antropov
66GP 16G 18A 33P

Bates Battaglia
80GP 13G 15A 28P

Mark Bell
78GP 16G 17A 33P

Jason Blake
80GP 37G 32A 69P

Carlo Colaiacovo
72GP 1OG 22A 32P

Tomas Kaberle
78GP 10G 52A 62P

Chad Kilger
79GP 15G 15A 30P

Pavel Kubina
72GP 11G 18A 29P

Bryan McCabe
75GP 17G 45A 62P

John Pohl
75GP 13G 13A 26P

Alexei Ponikarovsky
77GP 20G 20A 40P

Matt Stajan
81GP 15G 32A 47P

Alex Steen
80GP 23G 28A 51P

Mats Sundin
76GP 31G 47A 78P

Darcy Tucker
70GP 25G 25A 50P

Kyle Wellwood
80GP 22G 48A 70P

Ian White
77GP 7G 23A 30P

It should be noted that players projected to rack up less than 30 points were not included, which is why you don't see Hal Gill or Boyd Devereaux

Here is how they have projected the netminders:

Andrew Raycroft
10 Wins
3.00 GAA .900 SV% 1 SO

Vesa Toskala
31 Wins
2.55 GAA .909 SV% 4 SO

The Leafs are projected to end up 8th place in the Eastern Conference. Even the experts have us making the playoffs. Ottawa is projected to place 1st - then win the Cup - so we're obviously not expected to do much once in the playoffs.

Not just failed potential?

Found an interesting article today about Boyd Devereaux. It seems that Boyd owns a record company called Elevation Recordings. The description of the label (their words from their website):

Elevation is a new psyche/nopise [sic]/freakout/pop/heavy label dedicated to nothing more than the love of this kind of music. All releases will be limited from anywhere from 1-5000 copies and will not be reprinted when sold through.

I don't have too much to say about this, as the label has only released two EPs, neither of which I have heard. It should be noted, however, that Elevation has a release planned with Matt Cameron's (yes, THAT Matt Cameron) Wellwater Conspiracy. Neat-o.

I always like to hear about hockey players that aren't one dimensional. By that, I mean having a hobby /second career; like how Sidney Crosby has a clothing line. Or how Sheldon Souray beats his wife.

Well played, sir

Jeff Marek, host of AM 640's Leafs Lunch really fucking impressed me today. When Jeffy went to the phones to take calls from listeners, a particularly dull gentleman called in. The caller's inability to string together a few words in English - not because English was his second language, but because his brain has only even been used to mop floors - combined with his complete lack of hockey knowledge, made two things obvious quite fast:

[1] He was an average Leafs fan.
[2] He was probably from Keswick.

As I began to laugh at the man's obvious lack of intelligence, while feeling vastly superior at the same time, it happened...Jeff Marek totally fucking ripped into him. The first attack came unannounced: "Welcome to Darwin's waiting room." Then, before the dullard even realized he was being made a fool of, the fatal blow came: "Are you the third or fourth generation of your family to walk upright?" BURN!

What impresses me the most is that Marek is the Director of Sports Programming at AM 640 Toronto - he's the boss! Imagine if your boss talked to clients like that?! Bones it!

TSN's look at Canada's six NHL teams...is rubbish

We all love to hear about our favourite NHL team, regardless of the time of year. So, I was intrigued to see TSN's "summer six-pack, an online synopsis with all the reports on where your favourite Canadian team is going this season." Intrigued, that is, until I read the article.

Summer six-pack? I'd take issue with TSN's bullshit Poochie-The-Dog-esque jargon if I didn't know that deep down, many hockey fans were actually impressed that they equated the number of Canadian NHL teams with the number of beers in a case. Brutal.

All the reports on where my favourite NHL team is going this season: those are their words, not mine. The report that followed was no more than a recap of the offseason moves by the Leafs. In short, there was no information at all about where the team is going . Not a stab at where they'd finish, not even analysis of what they still need to upgrade. Nothing.

The only opinion that the article offered was on goaltending; that Andrew Raycroft is the #1 goaltender until he loses the job to Vesa Toskala. The fact is that there is no goaltending controversy in Toronto. Vesa Toskala is the #1 goaltender. He took the starting goaltender position from Andrew Raycroft the day he was acquired from San Jose. No general manager, not even John Ferguson Hooknose, trades away three draft choices (including a 13th overall pick) to acquire a back-up, or even platoon goaltender, especially not when there was an abundance of potential first string goalies to be had (ie. Manny Fernandez, Ilya Bryzgalov).

An intelligent sports fan should be wary of anything written by TSN. After all, TSN's job is to report the sports news, not to create sports news. At tsn.ca, however, they are all too willing to forget their role and pretend they are The Hockey News. The article that I am shitting on today wasn't written by any of TSN's "hockey experts", rather just by "tsn.ca Staff". It'd be interesting to know which part of tsn.ca staff wrote the article - was it, say, Bob McKenzie, or the guy that mops the floors in the washroom after Gino Reda drops a deuce? Judging by the content in the article - and at tsn.ca as a whole - I'd guess the latter.

2006/07 Season Highlights

Found this over at HockeyBuzz.com and thought it may be of interest here. All of you favourite moments are there, but some of the 'highlights' are unspectacular at best. The vids could be shorter - we didn't make the playoffs, after all.

Part I


Part II

Hey Mark, watch out for your corn hole, buddy

According to Sportsnet, Mark Bell is going to jail. Apparently, Sportsnet has learned that he will serve a six-month term at the end of this hockey season, likely in a California prison. Bell pleaded guilty on Tuesday to drunk driving after a hit-and-run incident in San Jose last Labour Day. His blood alcohol was double the legal limit when he ran into the back of another car. In other words, he Hancock'ed someone.

Sentencing for the offense will not take place until October. Interestingly enough, Sportsnet knows the length of the sentence before Bell gets sentenced. Very impressive! Sportsnet must have meant that Bell is expected to receive a six-month stint.

Being that Mark Bell is a professional athlete, we must remember that sentencing may not amount to anything other than community service and a fine. After all, Dany Heatley got zero time in prison for killing Dan Snyder with his car. Fuck, OJ Simpson got zero time in prison for double homicide. Mark Bell is now going to serve six months for rear-ending someone? Maybe, but the fact is that pro athletes rarely serve all their time.

So, the story could be true - Mark Bell probably does deserve to go to prison for injuring someone due to his own drunken negligence - but the ability of a pro athlete to dodge jail time, combined with Sportsnet's history of garbage journalism leaves me skeptical that Bell will ever see the inside of a cell.

From a very shallow, Leaf-centric point of view, Bell's impending sentence is likely bad news for Leafs Nation. Mark Bell has shown two very distinct sides of his game since graduating to the NHL. The first was the emerging power forward in Chicago that increased point and goal totals each of his first four seasons in the league, peaking at 25 goals and 48 points in 05/06. The second was the player we saw last year in San Jose: 10 goals, 11 assists and several games as a healthy scratch. It says here that the reason Mark shit the bed last season was the fallout from the DUI. It ruined his season, and has the potential to ruin the upcoming season as well. Hopefully Mark can get past it and resume his upward march to a legitimate NHL-calibre power forward.

And the conspiracy theorist in me says:
One must wonder whether this was part of the reason Bell was included in the Vesa Toskala trade. Obviously Mark Bell didn't live to expectations in San Jose, but they did trade away Tom Preissing and Josh Hennessy for his services. Often, the fact that decent talent was given up in exchange for an underachiever is enough reason to see the underachieving player through a bad season or two.

Perhaps San Jose Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson had the foresight to see this coming. Perhaps he was instructed by Sharks counsel Don Gralnek that Bell got himself into something fairly serious that would continue to dog him and his team. Perhaps the Sharks pulled the wool over JFJ's eyes, or told him that Toskala would never be a Leaf unless Mark Bell came with him. Or, perhaps I am full of bull'ish.

It's pronounced PEE-lash. I don't get it either.

Karel Pilar is no longer a Maple Leaf. Or a Marlie. The 29 year-old defenseman has signed a free agent contract with the Atlanta Thrashers. Good on him. After playing 50 games with the Leafs in the 2003/2004 season - and looking like he would become a mainstay on the blueline as a 3rd pairing d-man with a nice offensive upside - heart problems have limited Pilar to under 70 games in the 3 seasons since.

You may remember Pilar as part of the Leafs' never ending supply of mediocre talent. Pilar is a soft, finesse-type defenseman; a poor man's Tomas Kaberle. Because the Leafs already have a Tomas Kaberle, not to mention a few young d-men with more upside than Pilar, he had no hope of cracking the Leafs' lineup. He does, however, have a chance at cracking the Thrashers' lineup...but it should be noted that he is also a poor man's Alexei Zhitnik.

In any event, The Blue & White would like to congratulate him on getting outta Dodge, onto bigger and better things (Dude, you're on a playoff team now!).

Shot down in a blaze of glory

Yeah, that's right, a Bon Jovi reference.

No, you're gay.

I'm not sure what to think of the Leafs' search for a president - often called a 'mentor' to John Ferguson Jr. by Toronto media. This could only ever happen to the train wreck that is the Leafs. To be honest, the whole thing makes no fucking sense.

MLSE brass has taken the following strange stance on JFJ: he has all the tools to be an outstanding General Manager in the NHL, but as of now is not an outstanding General Manager, and needs some guidance to reach his (supposed) potential.

Now, Larry Tanenbaum (MLSE Chairman of the Board) and Richard Peddie (MLSE President & CEO) do not see eye-to-eye on the issue. Peddie hired JFJ and wants him to remain as GM - maybe to see JFJ reach his (supposed) potential, thus making himself look competent. Tanenbaum, on the other hand, would like to replace JFJ with a more experienced GM.

Their compromise is to hire a president to guide JFJ to his (supposed) potential. They have kicked the tires on a few of hockey's bigger names - most recently John Muckler and Scotty Bowman - but the position remains vacant. Bowman flat-out refused both of the offers that were sent his way. Don't expect to see Bowman sitting in a blue convertible with the Stanley Cup anytime soon. There has been no word on the outcome of the interview with Muckler.

David Shoalts wrote an article on August 5th, claiming that Bowman was close to accepting the position. Bowman refuted the claim. Shoalts seems to have since retracted his article (how fucking bush league!), as it has been modified on The Globe & Mail's website since it was originally printed. The only portion of the current article on the website that reflects Shoalts' original stance is a caption, which begins, "Legendary coach Scotty Bowman is on the verge of accepting a job as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs."

Fast forward to today, when a Michael Traikos article claims MLSE has put the search for a president on the back burner. Apparently the Leafs will begin the season with a mentor-less JFJ as GM. Richard Peddie was quoted as saying, "We still are intrigued - that's the verb I'll use - by the concept of bringing in some help for John." Thanks, Rich. I am intrigued - thats the verb I'll use - that Leafs fans haven't rolled you up in a carpet and thrown you off a bridge.

Although the Traikos article spins the situation in such a way that MLSE seems to have slowed its search for a president because they are comfortable with JFJ at the helm, the more likely reality, especially considering the above Peddie quotation, is that nobody wants the job. After all, they are looking for a tried and true "hockey guy": a guy with the know-how, the experience, and the elbow grease to build a successful franchise. Why would any hockey guy want to take the position when he'd effectively be castrated by the Steinbrenner-esque meddling of Tanenbaum and Peddie? They are interviewing men that have had significant success in the NHL for a position surrounded by people that have not...on a team that finished in the bottom half of the standings two years in a row.

Proven hockey guys and big hockey names are what should have been mentioned when JFJ was originally hired as an inexperienced 36-year old best known for being a hockey guy's son. It seems that if the big names in hockey are being brandied about, they should be in the running for the GM position itself. JFJ has shown very little in the way of growth in the position, and it seems replacing him is as easy as hiring another layer of red tape.