Hot damn, another season on us like the word hope defined. Being a Leaf fan has been a hard dollar for a long time, but there is never a year in which that little childish feeling doesn't somehow flicker in your soul in which you imagine an elaborate dream sequence of chance and fate teaming up together to achieve the unthinkable.
A side note for those who say "the NHL is a savage money hungry beast, and should be ignored", I get your point. I also drive a car, and for some insane reason i am responsible still for adding plastics to our landfills... far greater sins. The real trick with the NHL is to make sure they don't get my money. I mean i would punch myself in the balls before i would pay the ticket price an entertainment company charges, all while asking you, the patron to act as an extra in their made for tv experience. You know the drill, TV time out, flow of game broken, rock music, advertising... you forgot what was happening.. and then on the big screen MAKE SOME NOISE! MAKE SOME NOISE! LOUDER! LOUDER! And then they race over and drop the puck like it's an emergency. You see of course what the T.V viewer sees is a loud boisterous crowd and then action, and the paying fan gets no oscar nomination.
Who cares, i love watching Leaf games, and hockey season in general. For example, i made one of the best dinners the other night. Leaf game is on. Games usually start 4:00 PM my time, given i have lived on the West coast for a couple of decades. Think about it... I need to have dinner ready by 6... gives me a period to think, plan, light prep (thanks to the commercial breaks)... hey if you can't beat them join them right. And then an intermission where i blast into the kitchen and put the damn thing together. And then another period. Sometimes you get a good cleaning out of it. Say you wiped the floor, and while you were wiping the floor your team's captain Dion Phaneuf walks in over the blueline takes a nifty Nazem Kardi pass and goes top shelf where momma keeps the cookies. Well, you might see that as a good OMEN, perhaps it was the fact that you were wiping the floor that tipped the balance in the universe spurring the goal to happen. In the end you get a nice clean floor... when hockey is your religion, you need to practice your prayers.
So what about this Toronto Maple Leaf team for the 13/14 season?
If everybody on the team has a "career" year, i like our chances. Hey go with the obvious first right?
The culture is changing, there is no doubt about that. There is youth and some pretty damn good players. And the pretty damn good players are pretty young, which marks a significant change from the Leafs of yesterday, where the team would pay a premium for older, past their prime name stars.
I like the goal tending, I knew Reimer would get the start in game one, it had to happen. They owed him that honor for sure, had they not played Reimer in game one it would have been a bad omen of things to come. And Reimer played great in the opening game, which he won. Now Bernier get's the start tonight and that's all good, he looks like the real deal (although i thought Cornell alumni Ben Scrivens looked real good last year). The smart money is that Bernier is better (than Scrivens who he was traded for), and under ideal situations both goalies play great, and you have a winning team and an extra asset in goal. Having 2 good goalies is always a good problem to have, some teams manage that well, and others not so well.
On the defense i thought Paul Ranger had a great game the other day... a veritable steal for the blue shirts. A great big defender who left the game 4 years ago and is now back with a renewed passion for the game. Anytime you can get a top 4 d-man for nothing but a friendly cap hit is good. This along with the Kessel extension and the general feeling one get's that Toronto is a place good young players want to play now. I'm not sure this was always the case, and hey if you are calling the shots on where you want to play why not choose to play on a team you think can compete to win.
It is not unthinkable that the Toronto Maple leafs might have a few players in the top 10 scoring this year. Not saying it will happen, but it wouldn't be unthinkable to see Phil Kessel, James Van Riemsdyk, Joffrey Lupul or Nazem Kadri in that category. There are a bunch of potential 20 goal scorers on the team as well... Mason Raymond, David Clarkson, Tyler Bozak and Dave Bolland... Nikolai Kulemin scored 30 a few years ago.
The teams specialty teams have become much improved under coach Randy Carlyle, and the addition of some key penalty killers, Jay McClement leading the pact haven't hurt.
With the defense slowly coming around and a bunch of young defenders in the pipe the identity of the classic Toronto Maple Leafs play poor defense and let the goalie stand on his head routine, is being replaced by some systems and the idea that if you don't play the system, somebody else behind you might be willing to.
I never play in hockey pools, too much work keeping on top of things, and being a hockey pool guy who goes with his heart, i have a long history of being tarred and feathered. But this year might actually be different, the team seems to identify with being a team. I get the feeling that they (the players), in their heart think that they can do something if they work together. Sometimes you get teams filled with high paid individuals and egos get stomped on and feelings get hurt. The team's willingness to fight for one another is impressive. Years ago the New Jersey Devils pushed the leafs around in the playoffs, and i believe they got 6 shots on net in the final eliminating game... they were in the game until the end due to a brilliant performance by Curtis Joseph their stalwart goalie at the time, but you can't win a game getting 6 shots on Martin Brodeur. The team back then won a lot of games with stellar goal tending and a third period push by Mats Sundin, and Alexander Mogilny.
The forwards who won't score a lot, can skate, have speed, will hit and can play a role. Remember Jonas Hoglund and the Robert Reichel /Mikael Renberg years. They put some points up, but what happened when the games moved up a notch in tempo?
Kudos to the GM's and Coaches who have instilled this more competitive identity and made some good hard decisions to bring the team to the dawn of this new era.
As usual i am optimistic for a season of omen watching, heckles and hockey in general. If i was a betting man, which i am not, i say the Leafs contend for a while starting now.
A side note for those who say "the NHL is a savage money hungry beast, and should be ignored", I get your point. I also drive a car, and for some insane reason i am responsible still for adding plastics to our landfills... far greater sins. The real trick with the NHL is to make sure they don't get my money. I mean i would punch myself in the balls before i would pay the ticket price an entertainment company charges, all while asking you, the patron to act as an extra in their made for tv experience. You know the drill, TV time out, flow of game broken, rock music, advertising... you forgot what was happening.. and then on the big screen MAKE SOME NOISE! MAKE SOME NOISE! LOUDER! LOUDER! And then they race over and drop the puck like it's an emergency. You see of course what the T.V viewer sees is a loud boisterous crowd and then action, and the paying fan gets no oscar nomination.
Who cares, i love watching Leaf games, and hockey season in general. For example, i made one of the best dinners the other night. Leaf game is on. Games usually start 4:00 PM my time, given i have lived on the West coast for a couple of decades. Think about it... I need to have dinner ready by 6... gives me a period to think, plan, light prep (thanks to the commercial breaks)... hey if you can't beat them join them right. And then an intermission where i blast into the kitchen and put the damn thing together. And then another period. Sometimes you get a good cleaning out of it. Say you wiped the floor, and while you were wiping the floor your team's captain Dion Phaneuf walks in over the blueline takes a nifty Nazem Kardi pass and goes top shelf where momma keeps the cookies. Well, you might see that as a good OMEN, perhaps it was the fact that you were wiping the floor that tipped the balance in the universe spurring the goal to happen. In the end you get a nice clean floor... when hockey is your religion, you need to practice your prayers.
So what about this Toronto Maple Leaf team for the 13/14 season?
If everybody on the team has a "career" year, i like our chances. Hey go with the obvious first right?
The culture is changing, there is no doubt about that. There is youth and some pretty damn good players. And the pretty damn good players are pretty young, which marks a significant change from the Leafs of yesterday, where the team would pay a premium for older, past their prime name stars.
I like the goal tending, I knew Reimer would get the start in game one, it had to happen. They owed him that honor for sure, had they not played Reimer in game one it would have been a bad omen of things to come. And Reimer played great in the opening game, which he won. Now Bernier get's the start tonight and that's all good, he looks like the real deal (although i thought Cornell alumni Ben Scrivens looked real good last year). The smart money is that Bernier is better (than Scrivens who he was traded for), and under ideal situations both goalies play great, and you have a winning team and an extra asset in goal. Having 2 good goalies is always a good problem to have, some teams manage that well, and others not so well.
On the defense i thought Paul Ranger had a great game the other day... a veritable steal for the blue shirts. A great big defender who left the game 4 years ago and is now back with a renewed passion for the game. Anytime you can get a top 4 d-man for nothing but a friendly cap hit is good. This along with the Kessel extension and the general feeling one get's that Toronto is a place good young players want to play now. I'm not sure this was always the case, and hey if you are calling the shots on where you want to play why not choose to play on a team you think can compete to win.
It is not unthinkable that the Toronto Maple leafs might have a few players in the top 10 scoring this year. Not saying it will happen, but it wouldn't be unthinkable to see Phil Kessel, James Van Riemsdyk, Joffrey Lupul or Nazem Kadri in that category. There are a bunch of potential 20 goal scorers on the team as well... Mason Raymond, David Clarkson, Tyler Bozak and Dave Bolland... Nikolai Kulemin scored 30 a few years ago.
The teams specialty teams have become much improved under coach Randy Carlyle, and the addition of some key penalty killers, Jay McClement leading the pact haven't hurt.
With the defense slowly coming around and a bunch of young defenders in the pipe the identity of the classic Toronto Maple Leafs play poor defense and let the goalie stand on his head routine, is being replaced by some systems and the idea that if you don't play the system, somebody else behind you might be willing to.
I never play in hockey pools, too much work keeping on top of things, and being a hockey pool guy who goes with his heart, i have a long history of being tarred and feathered. But this year might actually be different, the team seems to identify with being a team. I get the feeling that they (the players), in their heart think that they can do something if they work together. Sometimes you get teams filled with high paid individuals and egos get stomped on and feelings get hurt. The team's willingness to fight for one another is impressive. Years ago the New Jersey Devils pushed the leafs around in the playoffs, and i believe they got 6 shots on net in the final eliminating game... they were in the game until the end due to a brilliant performance by Curtis Joseph their stalwart goalie at the time, but you can't win a game getting 6 shots on Martin Brodeur. The team back then won a lot of games with stellar goal tending and a third period push by Mats Sundin, and Alexander Mogilny.
The forwards who won't score a lot, can skate, have speed, will hit and can play a role. Remember Jonas Hoglund and the Robert Reichel /Mikael Renberg years. They put some points up, but what happened when the games moved up a notch in tempo?
Kudos to the GM's and Coaches who have instilled this more competitive identity and made some good hard decisions to bring the team to the dawn of this new era.
As usual i am optimistic for a season of omen watching, heckles and hockey in general. If i was a betting man, which i am not, i say the Leafs contend for a while starting now.
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