I'm back...

Alright,

So I'm going to start making posts on here again. I will start by posting one of my favourite hockey images...

The Slide for Stamkos

Just so we're all clear, the goal from here on out is for Toronto to end up in the bottom five of the NHL, with the lower we finish, the better. The idea is to beat the draft lottery, land the number one pick, and draft Steven Stamkos. What we're going to do here every day from now on (or pretty much every day, hopefully) is update these 'reverse standings'. These will be standings that, instead of sorting from most points on down (with the first team on the list being the best in the league/conference/division), it will have fewest points at the top of the list. That's because you WANT to finish last. Because this is the first post in this (again, hopefully) daily series, I'll lay down the ground rules and some other important information.

1) How does the lottery work?

The lottery contains all of our hopes and dreams. Designed to prevent teams from tanking (losing intentionally) a season in order to grab the top pick, the lottery takes the fourteen teams that miss the playoffs and give them weighted odds to win. If you win the lottery, you can move up a maximum of four places. This is important because it means that only the teams ranked 26-30 in the league (or, in our Stamkos standings, 1-5) actually have a chance at getting the top pick. Finishing last gives you the best chance of getting the number one selection in the entry draft. Here are the actual odds:

30th: 25.0% 
29th: 18.8% 
28th: 14.2% 
27th: 10.7%
26th: 8.1%
25th: 6.2% 
24th: 4.7% 
23rd: 3.6% 
22nd: 2.7% 
21st: 2.1% 
20th: 1.5%
19th: 1.1% 
18th: 0.8% 
17th: 0.5%

But, as I mentioned, only the 26th-30th teams can actually get the top pick. If 17th-25th win the lottery, they'll move up four spots, but the 30th team will still get the number one pick. The most recent example I can think of this, off-hand, was in 1999, when the Chicago Blackhawks, the 23rd finishing team, won and moved from 8th to 4th with their draft pick. Last-place Tampa Bay kept the first pick. This ended up meaning pretty much nothing, since Vancouver grabbed Chicago's pick, Tampa traded down to fourth and then traded that pick to the Rangers, and Atlanta ended up picking Patrik Stefan first overall. Therein lies a good example of risk: just because you do pick first doesn't guarantee you a real difference making player. Of those bottom four picks, Stefan went first, Vancouver took the Sedins second and third, and then the Rangers took Pavel Brendl fourth. The Sedins have turned out nicely, but the other two pretty much sum up the '99 draft: it sucked.

That was a pretty odd tangent to go off on, and I can't think of a way to segue from that into re-listing the odds for who actually ends up with the top pick, so let's just post them anyway:

30th: 48.2% 
29th: 18.8% 
28th: 14.2% 
27th: 10.7% 
26th: 8.1%

This shows that while it's important to finish in the bottom five to get yourself a shot at the top pick, it's way more important to finish in dead last to give yourself the BEST shot at getting that pick. Have teams finished 26th, won the lottery, and picked first? Yes they have. Chicago actually pulled this off last year, moving from 5th to 1st and taking Patrick Kane. The Islanders did this in 2000 as well, ending up with the top pick, which they turned into Rick DiPietro. Still, the odds aren't in your favour. That's why every loss counts.

2) Reverse standings? Stamkos standings? What the hell are you going on about?

This is really simple. All we're doing is taking the overall NHL standings and flipping them upside down. We're simplifying them to only show pertinent information. Example: TSN's standings show home record, away record, conference record, last ten game record, present winning/losing streak, regulation losses, overtime/shootout losses, and goals for and against. With the Stamkos standings, only Goals For and Goals Against from that list are kept, although it's combined into one number, goal differential. It's the same concept as a regular set of standings, except that we're rewarding whoever is the worst team (the reward is the best chance to get Stamkos, hence the name of the standings... I really feel like I'm repeating myself here).

3) So, are you listening the entire NHL here every day?

No, definitely not. Are you kidding? Look at how often we post here. That's waaaaay too much work for us. No, there are certain qualifications to get on this list. It isn't a fixed number of teams or anything, and you can be on it one day and off the next, or vice versa. Here is how you qualify:

a) Do not presently occupy a playoff spot (this mostly goes for the Southeast leader, presently Washington, who are like six points ahead of Tampa Bay for last in the East). If you are in the top 8 in your conference, you don't make the list. I'd say sorry, but you're in the playoff hunt, and I'm a Leafs fan, so fuck you.

b) Have a winning percentage of less than .550. Why .550? Well, we're all familiar with the .500 standard, right? With all of the loser points being thrown around post-lockout, 95 point teams (Colorado last year) not making the playoffs, and Toronto actually only being three games below .500 this year despite the fact that they are awful and should be shot into the sun, .500 isn't a good standard anymore. .550 is the new one. Why .550? It's a pretty good separator between 8th and 9th place at face value, and if you do the math, the NHL is actually playing .5505 hockey this year. I guess we could round that to .551, but not only does it leave for uglier math, but it doesn't stroke my ego in the way that eye-balling .550 does.

4) Does Toronto beating Montreal last night royally fuck us then?

Thankfully no, because Edmonton won the night before, and (somehow) Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, and Chicago all won last night as well. We didn't fall back at all. Plus, Montreal didn't win, which is always good news. That's not to say it's not ALL good news: with another Islanders loss, they're suddenly only one point behind us, a Blues loss puts them closer to Stamkos and farther from the playoffs, and Steve at Hockey Analysis outlines just how badly this month could go for us. But that's ok, because we still have hope. And hope is a good thing.

5) Tiebreakers?

Points is the first tiebreaker, obviously. The less points you have, the higher you are. Beyond points, we're going to rank by games played (because if you have games in hand, it's more likely you'll get points and move ahead), wins (since that's the official first tiebreaker in the NHL at season's end anyway, and if you aren't winning a lot of games, that's good for your Stamkos hopes), and goal differential (again, if you're getting badly outscored, it's more likely you'll lose more games).

I think that about covers it, so let's take a look at the Stamkos standings themselves, posted in what I really hope will end up as a nice little table. It probably won't be. GP = games play, W = wins, PTS = points, DIFF = goal differential.

1. LAK     56 GP, 23 W, 49 PTS, -24 DIFF
2. TBL     55 GP, 23 W, 51 PTS, -23 DIFF
3. TOR    56 GP, 22 W, 53 PTS, -28 DIFF
4. CHI     54 GP, 24 W, 53 PTS, -9 DIFF
5. NYI     55 GP, 24 W, 54 PTS, -29 DIFF
6. EDM    56 GP, 25 W, 55 PTS, -16 DIFF
7. FLA     56 GP, 25 W, 55 PTS, -9 DIFF
8. STL     52 GP, 24 W, 55 PTS, -14 DIFF
9. ATL     57 GP, 26 W, 56 PTS, -30 DIFF
10. CAR   56 GP, 26 W, 56 PTS, -13 DIFF
11. BUF    53 GP, 25 W, 57 PTS, +8 DIFF
12. CLB    56 GP, 26 W, 59 PTS, -5 DIFF
13. PHO   55 GP, 28 W, 60 PTS, 0 DIFF

And there you have it. I'm out for the weekend, so I guess the next possible update for this will be Monday. Christ, day one and we're already not doing it every day. We suck.

#56 - at Montreal

Yeah, so I did decide to do game day topics from now on. Neat, huh?

Tonight we are in Montreal to battle the hated Canadiens. But, of course, we want Montreal to win. Why? Two reasons:

1) If Montreal wins AND Ottawa loses, Montreal will pass Ottawa for first in the division and conference. Which is awesome, because while we should all hate Montreal, fuck Ottawa.

2) If we lose, combined with Edmonton's win yesterday, we keep pace in the race for the number one pick, namely: Steven Stamkos. I say keep pace because the two teams that are beneath us in the standings are Los Angeles, who plays Detroit tonight, and Tampa Bay, who play Nashville. A loss is always helpful these days, but especially tonight, when there is no chance Detroit takes a loss, and Nashville will probably win, too.

Toskala gets the start (why? Is Maurice not with the program? Does he not read the blogosphere? No? Oh...) and McCabe might be back, replacing Wozniewski in the lineup. This somehow doesn't scream loss to me. Oh well, here's hoping.

The Brett McLean Five-Point Special

You know, I considered watching the game last night. I've been itching for some hockey lately, I've liked watching the Panthers since the Pavel Bure trade, Toronto was coming off of a big win in a season where there haven't been many. Was I naive enough to think that doubling up Ottawa was going to kick the Maple Leafs into a playoff push? Of course not, but I thought that maybe they'd be up for playing a good hockey game.

I was wrong.

Thankfully, much like the night before when I had the option of watching The Baby-Sitters Club on television but decided to stay in bed, I passed. Judging by the 8-0 score, the hat-trick (and assist) from Richard Zednik and a five point night from Brett "What the FUCK?!" McLean, and Andrew Raycroft's magnificent 4 GA/7 SV/31 MIN stat-line... I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

There's not many positive things you can say about this team these days. Actually, I've narrowed it down to two:

1) Andy Wozniewski was waived today. Yeah, you can look at this as a "Bryan McCabe is finally back" moment, or you can look at it as "Wozniewski is finally off the damn team". I'm going with the second one. It's cloudy outside, but I could have sworn I could see sun when I read about this.

2) The real big wins for this team are the big losses. In which case, HELL FUCKING YEAH WHAT A GAME

Really, since Tampa and LA won (not to mention Edmonton the night before), and since we were somehow closing in on the Panthers, this just helps solidify a top pick in the draft. While I haven't lost my faith that this team to completely fuck this up and end up in 9th place yet again, every loss brings us closer to that not happening.

***

Steve and I have discussed what we think Fletcher needs to do in the next 20 days to right this ship, or at least cover the sinkholes and give the next guy buckets to bail the water out. Steve is very much a "trade Sundin" guy, believing the first priority should be to dump Mats to the highest bidder. I don't think this is necessarily an anti-Sundin sentiment. I know that Steve thinks the key is to get rid of Sundin so that those who are left behind are so demoralized that they only play worse, securing a higher draft pick. I suppose there's merit to that idea, except that I really don't think this team can get much worse. This is probably easy to write after last night's game, but they already play like shit with Sundin in the lineup. This just isn't a good team.

Me? Well, my stance was defined a couple of posts ago. That said, I'm more open to a Sundin deal now, and have singled out a couple of teams I wouldn't mind doing business with. The problem there is that I've been watching Mats toil for the blue and white for as long as I've been a hockey fan, and while I've never really considered myself a huge Mats guy (I've always liked him and thought he was one of the best players in the league, but it's not like I'm naming my hockey blog after him or anything), the thought of him in a different lineup makes me rather sad. So, I tend to want a lot for him, the kind of return that probably will have people laugh and think of me as a traditional message board Leafs fan who ridiculously overvalues Toronto players. Whatever. Here's what I've looked at around the league and decided I would be content with as a return on Sundin:

From Anaheim: Bobby Ryan and the Oilers' first pick (basically two top five picks in return for giving Mats his best shot at a Cup and probably a mortal lock that he'd come back in July).

From Carolina: Tim Gleason and two of Andrew Ladd, Brandon Sutter, and Carolina's first pick this year (probably a lot and this depends on the Hurricanes sticking around the playoff hunt and Rutherford not really thinking things through, but I like Gleason and think he'd be a good fit with the direction the blueline should be headed, plus you get a player, prospect, and a pick in the teens, or at least some combination of those three).

From Calgary: Alex Tanguay (yeah, I'd do this straight-up... doing this trade helps Calgary because it clears money off the books for next season, allowing them to try to keep Huselius/Langkow since you know Sundin wouldn't stay, it gives Sundin a decent shot at winning the Cup, and the public sentiment seems to have turned against Tanguay in Calgary. Here, it gives us a great, top-flight forward locked up - yeah, he's another big ticket guy, but Tanguay is the type you WANT to be dropping 5.75 million on. Plus, you get Sundin back next year, and you have two-thirds of a great top line already).

Of course, none of these are realistic and it's probably more likely we'll get an abortion of a return like the one suggested by Pierre LeBrun last week (Sundin and a one year extension to Detroit for Hudler, an '08 first, and an '09 second... the picks are worthless because Detroit always finishes so high, and I don't think Hudler is ever going to be anything special) and that I will be angry.

Anyway, I still don't think you need to trade Sundin, and I've started to sway myself on not dumping Pavel Kubina for whatever you can find. When Steve and I were discussing this, he asked me that if I can put together such a good argument for how he's valuable, then why not just keep him? And I really didn't have a good answer to that. I'd still move him if you can get something back, because he does have a large contract, but it's only for another two seasons and I'm no longer opposed to keeping him. A similar thing is happening with me and Jason Blake. His contract is horrible, but a 20 goal, 50 point guy has some value to a team, and that's assuming he doesn't rebound slightly. Past that, what are the options? Again, if you can find someone to take him, do it, but why buy him out and eat a 2 million cap hit for the next EIGHT years? $4 million sadly isn't bad for a top six guy and Blake is one of those. He just needs to be better for next year. But I mean, it could be worse... he could be Dustin Penner.

McCabe, Tucker, and Raycroft NEED to be off this team by next season. I think Gill will get moved at the deadline, and Bell will probably get bought out. I think Tucker would work well in Edmonton's lineup, but a) why would they try to add a veteran at the deadline? and b) why would Tucker waive his no-trade clause to go to another rebuilding team? Maybe it's just my unbridled desire to get Rob Schremp that's giving me these thoughts.

I think we might start doing regular game-day topics around here like you see on a real hockey blog. Who knows?

Oh and Steve, no, I am not going to stop ridiculously over-labelling my posts.

The Long Awaited, Long Overdue, Long Deserved, Celebratory, Ritualistic Dance - Post

If by some horrible force of nature you are completely ignorant (or possibly retarded) then the title of this post does not make sense to you. Even those that aren't completely ignorant/retarded probably need an explanation as well though, so don't feel all that out of place dear readers (haha).

This is the long overdue post to celebrate the firing of Mr. John Ferguson Junior. I have been calling for this man's head since Day Two (day one I was still trying to decide what I thought of the guy). I never liked him, and that is no lie. I was willing to give the poor guy a chance though. Unfortunately he turned out to be even worse than I could have ever imagined. He dealt out bonehead after bonehead contract to mediocre players, and crippled a once proud - I can't even type this without laughing - franchise, and then beat it when it was down.

Now to Ferguson's credit, he was never really given a fighting chance. Toronto is the hockey mecca of the world (or at least we in this mecca like to think). It's bad enough that a player's, a coach' s, and management's every move is scrutinized (all the way from the latest performance, to which side of the bed they woke up on this morning). But Ferguson also had to constantly deal with his power and authority being undermined. As Dave mentioned below, Richard Peddie, an excellent business man, somehow feels the need to intervene in an area he seems to have little to now knowledge in (that being the sporting operations side of the organization, whether it be formerly with the Raptors, or currently with the Leafs). Peddie certainly did not make the situation any easier or manageable for Fergie. I won't sound off on Peddie any further because Dave has captured my sentiments perfectly, so if you really want to know what I think, read his long ass post below.

Now I acknowledge I hate Ferguson, and I think he was terrible for this franchise, I'm going to take the high road today. I'm sure many individuals have chosen to further bash the man today, scrutinizing everything he has done leading up to this fateful day, but not I. I am here to mention some of the things - albeit few - that JFJ did right in his time in Toronto.

1) Locking up Tomas Kaberle at $4.25 million per season for 5 years (contract ending in 2010/11).
- Kaberle has been arguably our best player over the past few season (yes, yes I'm aware Mats Sundin is STILL a Leaf). Compared to some of the contracts dished out to defenceman over the past few season - primarily our own players - Kaberle looks to be a solid investment at a reasonable price for years to come.

2) Aquiring San Jose's Cheaper Goalie (Vesa Toskala).
- Sure we had to (I assume) take Mark Bell in the deal as well, but we needed an upgrade in net. I liked Raycroft last season (06/07), contrary to most. He set a Leafs record for wins in a season, and in my opinion that was pretty astounding. The problem with Raycroft is that he didn't make the easy saves when he needed to. It seemed he would let in a lot of soft goals which undoubtedly cost us a playoff (when looking at the entire season). Toskala served this purpose. We have him for two seasons at 1.375 million (less than what Razor is making) and then we have him for another two seasons after that at 4 million, which could be getting steep by the end of the contract (09/10) ... but for now, we'll give JFJ the benefit of the doubt and say this was a good move.

3) Trading Tuukka Rask
- Now this is going to be a controversial one but I'm going to try and justify this. Here goes. I'll start by saying the trade was initially good because Razor played a ton of games for us in his first season as a Leaf (I'm too lazy to look up the final total) and that was exactly what we needed after putting up with Belfour and his back for a few seasons. With a better defence and greater confidence this former rookie of the year could have excelled here.

But more importantly than that we freed up room for Justin Pogge. I don't know, and only time will tell which goalie is better (Rask or Pogge), but one of them had to be moved. JFJ decided that Rask was the one to be moved. In the long run it may backfire, but for now I'll say it was good because it gave them a full time job and time to develop - even if it meant one wasn't going to be a Leaf. Also it filled a need for a starting goalie ... unless you wanted to bring back "EDDIE" "EDDIE" "EDDIE".

4) Signing Hal Gill
- I don't really like the guy, but he's played pretty solid in his year and a half in the blue and white, and at just over 2 mil a season he doesn't have the albotross of a contract that McCabe and Kubina both have, making him a very valuable piece of this franchise. It's a good signing because it worked out, and gives us a fairly moveable defenceman that we may be able to get an overpaid return on ... I can hope.

5) Keeping Chad Kilger
- Every team should have a Chad Kilger. I think he's a hard worker, that appears to be a good locker room guy. At 1.2 mil this season, and 800,000 and 700,000 the next two seasons, he should be kept around.

6) Signing Boyd Deveraux
- Another guy like Kilger, and that seems to be the Leafs problem ... all our players are in this mold, except some are being paid way too much money. Assuming we had some talented players on the top 3 lines, I'd have no problem putting out a 4th line where 2 of the 3 guys were Deveraux and Kilger.

So JFJ, I have chirped you all these years, and now finally I am giving you some credit. I suppose it's a little too late now that you are at the ACC cleaning out your desk, but find solace in the fact that there is one individual offering you praise for your time here in Toronto.

But please, excuse me, I'm off to do my ritualistic celebration of your firing dance around a fire I current have lit on my living room floor. The face paints are all laid out nicely, and I will soon be dancing to "Apache jump on it, jump on it, jump on it".

Here's to hoping Cliff Fletcher can save this miserable franchise (at least in terms of on ice performance, everyone knows they're still a cash cow) ...

So much for that

See what I mean by things changing momentarily?

I guess this means we can retire the 'Fire JFJ' tag.

Dave being Dave

Come on, we should all know by now that whenever I say 'I'll finish this later', I don't mean 'later in the day', I mean 'next week', or (more likely) 'not at all'.

Last time, I looked at the problem this team has in a very general sense. You know, the players aren't good enough to win more than they lose regularly in the National Hockey League, the front office is filled with people who probably shouldn't have the jobs they do, and the people who run the team from the board room are a meddling group of incompetents on a good day. Everyone knows the problems with the Toronto Maple Leafs. If you couldn't figure it out just from watching the past few years, you've surely figured it out by the non-stop media bombardment over the past month or so. The Leafs are a mess, people, we all know it, let's go a little deeper today, shall we? I want to look at what this franchise needs to do to get back on track - from a hockey perspective, obviously, as everyone with money invested in the organization is sitting pretty.

The first step, I think, is pretty obvious. Richard Peddie needs to be removed from the hockey operations side of the company. He's done a wonderful job of making money for MLSE. That's great. I'm happy for him and them, I truly am. More power to Peddie for doing... well, whatever it is that he does that makes them so much money. Good for Richard Peddie.

But that doesn't qualify him to be making decisions about the day-to-day hockey operations. It doesn't qualify him to be anywhere NEAR that department. And yet, there he sits, president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. So the first thing that needs to be done is move him out of the job.

(I'm not going to suggest that Peddie be outright fired - are you kidding? From 1998 to 2003, when Steve Stavro sold off and Peddie got involved in the hockey operations, he did nothing but make fistfuls of money for MLSE. He's not making them lose anything now. He won't get fired, and doesn't deserve to. But they should move him back to his old job so he can make them money while not hampering the hockey team.)

Many people, apparently including myself, looked at the chain of events that happened with the Raptors as a good model to take. Peddie hired someone as GM of the Raptors, it didn't work out, so he snaked a proven, young executive to be the new GM. Most importantly, he gave Bryan Colangelo the unilateral power to reshape the team however he saw fit. Colangelo was hired in February of 2006. The Toronto Raptors made the playoffs in 2007. This is the model the Maple Leafs need to adopt.

But if Peddie does not step aside, back to the money-making shadows of the board room, and give control of the actual hockey team to the new people in charge of building it, nothing is going to change, and nothing will matter. As long as Peddie remains president of the hockey team, the team will spin its tires. Period.

Anyway.

Next step is removing John Ferguson, Jr., from the position of general manager. Now, I like Ferguson. I like that we hired a young guy (he was 36 when hired, and is still only 40), and I feel really bad for the situation he was thrown into. Let's be honest with ourselves - Ferguson was never going to succeed regardless of how good he was at the job. And, again, being honest with ourselves - he didn't do a very good job. Is he capable of doing better? I'd think he'd have to be. Does he deserve a shot somewhere else? Maybe. Does he need to go now? Absolutely.

Again, this is someone I don't know if I'd fire outright. It's not like he made the Owen Nolan trade or anything. All kidding aside, can't we give him a scouting job or something? He's a young guy who was handcuffed by the situation he was given. He's worked as a professional scout before, re-assign him to that department. Just keep him away from contracts.

At this point, we've removed the president (Peddie) and the GM (Ferguson Jr.), which brings us to the next guy on the blame train: Paul Maurice.

I personally believe Maurice is the right man for this job. I enjoy his personality, I believe in his style, and I think the blame should fall to the inferior player personnel, not the coach.

That said, I give him one more year. Ideally, the roster is so dramatically reshaped next year that you're able to get a real sense of what he can do with this team. If the results aren't strongly positive, go back to the well. I'm not saying "get us to the playoffs next season or you're gone", but he has to prove that he can steer this ship back to respectability. I keep him on, but with the understanding that he's out of a job if things don't change.

More or less, that takes care of the office jobs that are already filled. I'm still on a very light hockey diet these days - I read a ton, but I don't watch all that much or follow the inner workings of the organization closely, so I'm not the guy to tell you that, say, the head European scout isn't doing his job. Now we need to look towards filling them.

One of the fun parts about this entire mess (assuming you're neither Maurice nor Ferguson, that is...) is that things are changing more or less by the hour. I was fully PLANNING to this post last week the day after I wrote the last one, but then it took a big part of the day to get caught up on what I missed while I was sleeping, and then by the time I was caught up, I had a host of new things to read. And by the point that the day's news had finally slowed, we were all expecting Cliff Fletcher to come back and blow the team up. The tone of my post would have changed, since I was planning on saying something like "I have absolutely no fucking idea who we hire right here and now", so I decided to wait things out. And I waited, and waited, and we still don't have Fletcher making his triumphant, Rock-esque return speech, and here we are a week later. But I digress.

The point of that was to segue to my suggestion for the GM spot: hire Cliff Fletcher. I know, ground-breaking and all, given that the entire mainstream media and blogosphere has been buzzing about this for a week. But still, I'm sticking with it.

I like the idea, a lot. The only condition is that it has to be understood that it's an interim position. We all love Fletcher, but he hasn't executed a successful, long-term plan on a hockey team since he worked for the Calgary Flames. And he left them in 1991.

However, we're looking for a short-term thing at the moment. Specifically, I want Fletcher to come in, cut the fat, stock the cupboards, and position the team to be young and competitive in the coming seasons. His track record (joined the Maple Leafs in 1991, traded five players to Calgary for five better players - including Doug Gilmour - the next season, had the team in the playoffs the season after that; joined the Coyotes in 2001, had the team in the playoffs by the next season when he was kicked upstairs so that Michael Barnett could destroy the team; and I thought he did more with Tampa but Wikipedia has nothing and I can't be bothered to look elsewhere) suggests he can do that. Really, what is he being asked to do? Fill the job until someone with a long-term vision can come in. Until then, clear out as much dead cap space as you can, get whatever young players, draft picks, and general assets as you can, leave the new guy with cap room and young talent to work with, and then sit back in a nice, comfy advisor's job. In the process, you're throwing the fans a bone by bringing back a name from the Passion teams. Why not?

However, I wouldn't expect Fletcher to be calling the shots by the draft, when I'd hope that THE new guy is in charge. So, who is that guy going to be?

Well, I don't have the first fucking clue.

Darren Dreger and other MSM outlets like throwing around names like Ken Holland, Jim Rutherford, and Brian Burke. Holland is the best GM in the league and has some serious tenure with Detroit, as Rutherford does in Carolina. Burke and Rutherford are no slouches, either. How the hell does anyone figure that they're going to bail on their jobs to come and work for this team? ESPECIALLY if Peddie doesn't get out of the way and give them complete control? Don't get me wrong, I'd be utterly ecstatic if MLSE convinces Holland to jump ship, but I'm not counting on it. Most of the other presently employed GMs aren't particularly desirable to me, and the ones that aren't employed, well, aren't employed for a reason. We're not going to be able to go and steal the direct architect of one of the best teams in the league like Peddie was able to do with Colangelo and the Raptors (unless, of course, there's fire to the smoke re: Holland), so I think that means we should look at the best and brightest 'understudy' executives working for other teams who haven't got a shot yet. I'm talking specifically about hiring either Jim Nill from Detroit (he's highly regarded, and if we can't take Holland, why not swipe his assistant?) or Wayne Thomas from San Jose (another well-thought-of guy who's working in a successful organization). My personal pick is Thomas, but I'd be satisfied with either one.

Then you have the president's spot, and I want Scotty Bowman for that - assuming he's still interested, that is. I don't know that he really wants to have the day-to-day grind of the GM job, but hiring him first (and yeah, I wrote it backwards, whatever) and letting him pick his own GM (and if Bowman is doing the hiring, you have to think the chances of it being Holland or Nill increase) and then letting him sit back and get involved when necessary might be tempting. If you can't get Bowman, give Fletcher the president's job when you hire a new GM. Or make the next GM take the president's job, too. I don't know. The goal should be Bowman.

So, if we follow, we're replacing Richard Peddie with Scotty Bowman, John Ferguson, Jr. with Cliff Fletcher and then Wayne Thomas, and giving Paul Maurice one more year. Cool.

Dealing with the mess of the actual team is both way more complicated and way more simple. Get rid of the old guys with big salaries. I'm not one of those message board Leaf fans that dramatically overvalue all of their own players, nor am I expecting significant returns. But, come on. It's trade deadline season. You're seriously going to tell me that in a market with MAYBE five teams committed to selling (Tampa, Los Angeles, Toronto, Edmonton? Buffalo?) and everyone else within striking distance of the playoffs, you're not going to be able to find someone to flip a draft pick or prospect of some sort for some of what needs to be moved? You're going to tell me that Columbus, the last NHL team to have never made the playoffs, sitting on the bubble with ten million in cap space and another ten million coming off the books next year in Sergei Fedorov and Adam Foote's expiring contracts, are going to tell their fans that "sorry, Bryan McCabe doesn't fit in with what we're trying to do here"? A team like Chicago, desperate to make the playoffs for the first time since 2002, isn't going to think long and hard about bringing Hal Gill (who's actually having a pretty good year, oddly enough) on board? Phoenix, in a similar situation as Chicago but a lot more cap space, is going to pass on secondary scoring players in the form of a Jason Blake, Darcy Tucker, or Mark Bell?

Again, I'm not saying get huge returns for them. You can't. McCabe has three years and a 5.75 million cap hit left, Kubina has two years and 5 million per, Tucker has 3/3, Blake has (an absolutely FUCKING insane) 4/4. Bell and Gill each have one more year left at 2.5 and under, so they're actually not entirely that unreasonable, except that Bell pretty much sucks and Gill likely isn't going to play this well anywhere else, ever again. But that isn't the point. Cliff Fletcher does not need to hit a home run with a Pavel Kubina trade, he needs to clear Pavel Kubina's salary off of the books and get him out of here. And, by being aggressive and ruthless and playing on all the factors of a seller's market at this time of the year when teams have cap space and prospects to spare and need to show their fans they're serious... I think at least a few of these guys can be moved.

If I'm running the team, the only three people I DON'T trade are Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle, and Vesa Toskala. I'll look at my evidently contrarian stance on Sundin later in the week, but I think you can build a solid team around those three in the short term. I'm looking to the New York Rangers here. When they blew their team up in 2004, they kept Jaromir Jagr. So I keep Sundin. Trade him if you can get a massive return and you know he's coming back next year, but keep him otherwise. Other than those three, everyone is available.

I think Fletcher, or whoever is hired to stick and light the dynamite, has a few goals in order to get the team ready for next year:

1) Clear out as many of the Tucker/Blake/Kubina/McCabe/Bell/Raycroft sucktet as possible. Bryan McCabe is a very useful player in this league, no question, but at 5.75 million on a team that needs to be blown up, he's worthless. Get what you can for these guys. Don't try to swing for the fences unless you're given your pitch, just try to get on base. Clearing these guys out cleans up a LOT of dead cap space and opens up a lot of roster spots. And all of them are moveable. All of them. But do it in the next month, while teams are making retarded decisions. If you can get someone to give up something of value for Raycroft right now, you're not getting it any other time. Pull the trigger.

2) Trade Hal Gill. He's having a good year, he's got one more year at 2.075 against the cap, he's big and he's a veteran. I would never have predicted it, but Gill is pretty much our best non-Sundin/Kaberle trading piece. You should be able to get something decent here. I mean, realistically, how many teams are going to be dedicated sellers? If we go with the five listed before, what is everyone's options on defense? Rob Blake and Brad Stuart from the Kings, Steve Staios and Dick Tarnstrom from Edmonton, Brian Campbell from Buffalo, and then the Toronto guys. Play the market. Play it hard. Teams like Columbus, St. Louis, Chicago, Phoenix, Florida... they're not going to be able to NOT make moves at the deadline unless they fall way out of the hunt.

3) Get Andy Wozniewski off of the team. He's a UFA at the end of the year. Good. Keep it that way.

4) Explore trading Alexei Ponikarovsky, Nik Antropov, and Ian White. Ponikarovsky is the guy I'd most be satisfied with moving, since I think he's pretty much reached his ceiling. While 20 goal, 35 point guys have a place, at his price tag, I'd see what you can get for him. Antropov is finally having the great year he's been teasing since 02/03, and White is a young, puck-moving defenseman. These are players that will help for the future, but if you can get something that will help more, look into it.

5) Stock up on prospects and draft picks. Look, when New York did this in 2004, I remember looking at a lot of the returns they got and thinking "wow, they stacked their cupboards". They didn't. Prospects don't always turn out. Toronto gave up a lot for Brian Leetch - two prospects and a first round pick for Leetch and a swap of mid-round picks - but neither of those players turned out and the pick ended up being flipped to Calgary for another pick - and neither of THOSE two players, Lauri Korpikoski and Kris Chucko, have done anything of note yet. Hell, neither have even played an NHL game. The point is, by getting lots of prospects and picks, you're increasing your odds. Think of it as buying lottery tickets. The more you have, the better shot you have at winning, right? This is the same thing. Get in bulk and hope enough of it turns out so that you break even.

6) Stay away from retarded contracts like those of everyone in point 1.

Now, obviously, there are no guarantees with anything, especially in this business, but I think that if the interim GM can come in and execute these steps, it will clear the slate nicely for the permanent GM. Yeah, it's asking a lot, but what the fuck is the point of doing this if you aren't going to do it right?

This weekend is the All-Star Game, and after thinking about it over the last couple of days, why did any of us really think a big move was coming last week? The ASG provides the perfect opportunity to give everyone a chance to regroup after a big change like this. So I really think that something is coming down the pipe this weekend. I'm guessing Ferguson gets fired and Fletcher is given the interim job. Peddie won't go anywhere, at least not yet, and probably not at all. Why now? This year is a write-off anyway, and Fletcher isn't the guy who's going to get the long-term power. Peddie will step back in the summer, or this team is fucked, period.

Ah, but who are we kidding? This is the Toronto Maple Leafs, people. The three game winning streak we had last week wasn't a fluke, it's how things are going to be for the rest of the season. They're going to pick their game up, McCabe is going to come back, and we'll have another ninth-place, one-point-out finish. Ferguson will keep his job, sign Brendan Morrison to a stupid contract, and trade Jiri Tlusty for Dwayne Roloson. I'll be writing this exact same post next January, just like in March, I'll be writing the exact same "holy shit guys we can make the playoffs for really real" posts I wrote last year.

The sad part is, I actually believe that that is probably what will happen. I mean, this is Toronto. Nothing is ever, EVER, going to change.

That's about it for me. I'll leave with a link to Tom Benjamin's take on the crisis. I need some sleep.

Crisis

I'm just starting to think that hockey is a really hard sell for me in the late part of the year. Last year I got really into things after the calendar turned, and this year it's the same - otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. Then again, we're under different circumstances this time around, so let's get into that rather than make yet another apology on lacking posts, shall we?

The Toronto Maple Leafs, as presently constructed, are a sham of a hockey team.

There's not much more to say about it than that, really, but why not go into the gory details? The team is completely unwatchable. We went to a bar last week to watch the game against the Kings, and we ended up leaving well early (well, at least I did - Jared stayed to get drunk, I'm sure).

Everything about the team is set-up wrong. The goalie situation has been botched again and again and again, and that's coming from someone who really likes and believes in Toskala. The defense is terrible and has precisely one quality, top-flight player. The offense scores goals, but not enough to make up for all the goals that go in the net, and there are some seriously rotten contracts up front. The players have stopped listening to the coach, the general manager is dangling in the wind, the team president is meddling and in over his head, and the ownership is fractured and apparently unwilling to do anything. At least, unwilling to do anything with any sort of speed.

The Leafs have been bad all year, a culmination of the post-lockout teams being just good enough to almost make the playoffs with a big run at the end to hold off sweeping changes, at least two seasons of short-sighted trades and signings pre-lockout, and a messy ownership situation that has crippled the team ever since Steve Stavro sold off in 2003. That was when most of us first heard of Richard Peddie, the man who became the public face of the team's upper-management and the one who became more hands-on in decisions for both the Leafs and the Raptors. Peddie will probably never lose his job - since he joined the team in 1998, MLSE has tripled in value - but he's proven, both with the Raptors and Maple Leafs, that he shouldn't be involved in the sporting operations of these teams. The Raptors turned their organization around when Peddie hired Bryan Colangelo, gave him full control and stepped back to the board room. Unless the MLSE board and Peddie are prepared to do something similar with the Leafs, nothing is going to change.

Pretty much everyone out there sees this thing coming to a climax by week's end, and I'm in with that group. Apparently, there's a board meeting tomorrow, and I expect they'll make a decision on Ferguson then. That decision, I assume, will be to fire him. That said, I think they won't announce it until later in the week to try to get the interim guy under contract. We'll see.

There are numerous great reads on the internet about the Leafs' situation that have been written in the last couple of days. I've sort of become sidetracked since I started writing and my thoughts aren't as focused, so while I take a little bit to jot down what I think needs to be done, why don't you go ahead and take a look at some takes that are out there?

James Mirtle: Where the Leafs sit, Leafs look to Fletcher

Pierre LeBrun: Career Suicide

Lowetide: He's a Real Nowhere Man

Alec Brownscombe: 'Trader Cliff' Makes Sense

Damien Cox: Leaf directors need to act now

Eric Duhatschek: Scotty Bowman: Mr. Right

Scott Burnside: Leafs' limbo driving team into NHL basement

Jason Voulgaris: A Post For Wonderful Surprises, This Thing I Have Become, I Hear Ottawa Has a Good Team, It's Mess, I Confess

Needless to say, things have gotten bizarre here. The sky is falling and the tornado alarm has been sounded. We've got a crisis on our hands - or at least, that's how it certainly feels. I'll be back with more on this later.

5 Reasons Not To Fire John Ferguson Jr.

5. You've stuck with him this long, at least give him until the end of the season, see if something turns itself around.

4. The Leafs are 14th in the East, and dead last in the division. It's not like they're going to get any worse.

3. Us Leafs fans (or it is Leaf fans?) are stupid. We'll still pay $200 for a nosebleed seat, just to "boo" a shitty team. The profits won't go down, I promise.

2. The real source of the problem is not JFJ. It's the fucked up management of MLSE. Richard Peddie and Larry Tanembaum (spelling?) are the real stars of the show, JFJ is just the puppet. They need to relinquish some control, ie. Bryan Colangello with the Raptors.

1. I've been calling for JFJ's head for about a year and half, you don't want to prove me right now.

Hey, Fuck You (Dave)

You went from June 10th to September 28th without saying shit on this blog, so you can't complain about me being "inactive" ... say what you will about Jared.

That said I have some very interesting thoughts about the NHL opener (the real one on Wednesday night, not the fake London ones). Those thoughts can be summed up in the following quote, "how about those baseball playoffs?".

The Rockies won their first playoff game since 1995. Beauty. Now (assuming Philly can win at least one game) the Phillies can win their first playoff game since 1993.

The Red Sox opened up their series with the Angels by riding a HUGE performance by Josh Beckett. A 3 hitter. Man can that guy pitch when it means something.

Then, the team that seems to be getting counted out took a 1-0 lead on the Cubs. Surely you know who I'm talking about, or have you counted them out too? Shame. It's the God damn DBacks. Now I consider myself a DBacks fan (only behind the Jays of course) and even I've barely heard of their team. For the most part they are a bunch of young "unknowns". I'm calling it right now, they will surprise the fuck out of people - granted that could simply mean winning two games, how should I know.

There is one thing I know though, fuck the Leafs and their inability to win games, oh and fuck Heatley for killing Dan Synder and not dying too ... it was the Leafs darkest day when he surived. And you thought I wasn't going to address hockey at all ...

Hey guys what's going on in this blog

Hey everyone both of you, just thought I'd stop in and see what's up. The lolNHL returns to action soon, tomorrow if you want to count the London games, and next week if you don't. Toronto is probably going to return to the ninth position, mere points out of the playoffs, teasing us yet again with a nice little run at the end only to shit on all of our chests. That's right guys, Pissed-off, bitter Dave is back!

Now if only those assholes Jared and Steve would write again...

Two Words ... (and it's not suck it)

VESA TOSKALA !!!

And Just When You Thought I Was Gone ...

I make a return appearance, just to annoy everyone once again. Unfortunately, this will not be my trademarked rant, I was just popping in to say "hello". While I'm here I thought I might do some predictions regarding tonight's awards ... not that anyone cares, but I will anyway.

Hart Trophy will belong to Sidney Crosby, but Luongo deserves it more.

Vezina Trophy will go to Marty Brodeur, 12 SO is ridiculous.

Lester B. Pearson Award winner will be Vincent Lecavalier, just have a feeling. Wouldn't be surprised if Luongo got it though.

Nick Lidstrom and the Norris Trophy ... get out! Ya think?

Calder Trophy winner will be Evgeni Malkin.

Selke Trophy is probably going to Rod Brind'Amour, Jay Pandolfo might surprise.

Lindy Ruff was again the best coach in the league, and hands down wins the Jack Adams.

Martin St. Louis will win the most pointless award in all of professional sports, the Lady Byng.

Well there are my predictions, someone will have to let me know how I did ... I'm certainly not watching that boring 2 or 3 hours of pointless TV.

What the fuck is a draft?

I'm not normally a big fan of Hockey's Future. It's a (valuable, I suppose) resource that a lot of people in the online hockey community swear by, but I've just never been into it. I could get into various reasons, but let's be honest, they're irrelevant and you don't care. You want the goods! And, thanks to this post at Japer's Rink, I found an interesting little experiment that HF has been conducting recently. It takes a look at the 2002 NHL Entry Draft five years after the fact:

We have measured success in selecting by using NHL games player, because it is
fair to all types of players, flashy goal scorers to defensive defensemen.
Overall, NHL teams have gotten an average of 22.5 NHL games per pick out of the
2002 draft class, which is not far from the averages for 2000 and 2001, each
after five years. The Toronto Maple
Leafs have gotten the most value out of the 2002 NHL Entry Draft thus far,
averaging 59 NHL games per pick. They accomplished this despite making
their first selection at 24th overall. The Chicago
Blackhawks came in fourth among teams, despite not picking until 21st
overall.

The above 'blockquote' (silly Web lingo) is from this article, whereas the link above (the highlighted word 'experiment' takes you to the Toronto-specific page.

Basically, 2002 brought Alexander Steen, Matt Stajan, Ian White, and Staffan Kronwall to the blue and white. It also brought Jarkko Immonen (and, for that matter, a handful of what HF had decided are 'busts'), but hey, he's a Ranger now, so he's not the point. The point is that it appears that the Leafs had a very good draft. I know. I'm as shocked as you.

Maybe a little bit more of that magic, eh guys? God knows that this team needs it.

I can only hope Darren Dreger is not lying to me

But, given my past issues with him, not to mention his horrid rumour-mongering and past career decisions, I don't hold out much hope.

Bryan McCabe still has four years remaining on a deal that averages $5.75
million per year. He also has a "no movement" clause which some suggest he
would waive for one team, the New York Islanders. If the Islanders can't
re-sign Ryan Smyth or Jason Blake, they'll need to make a splash. The
Maple Leafs won't initiate a discussion, but with 8 defensemen soon to be under
contract they might listen. Freeing up valuable cap space to enable the
Leafs to be a contender for top free agent players is very appealing. This is a
distinct possibility.

Now, McCabe certainly isn't, you know, TERRIBLE or anything, but I've never approved of his contract. For the caliber of defenseman he is (you know, worse than the much more affordable Kaberle), I want him either a lot cheaper or not on my team. I like the guy and all, but I'm not comfortable with Bryan McCabe the player for damn near six million a year. Like Dreger mentions, there's a lot of benefit to the team by trying to dump McCabe. We free up a ton of cap room and have the opportunity to pick up more players, such as a better defenseman (I'll take either Timonen or Hannan, thank you very much).

The bottom line, to me, is that without his breakout offensive first-half of the year last season, McCabe isn't staring at all that money because he not only isn't good enough defensively or consistent enough offensively (i.e. just not fucking good enough) for that kind of money, but he's not nearly the crowd favourite that other guys who've gotten ridiculous contracts (Tucker's $3 million, Domi's $1.5 million back in the day) are. The only reason he has that contract is because he has a big shot and was picking up lots of points on the powerplay at the start of 2005-06. He petered out after his injury, and he hasn't been the same "league leader" player since... well, no shit. He never was. Then again, when have the fucking Toronto Maple Leafs ever been known for their fiscal sanity?

I'm in favour of moving him, but I want as much as possible in return. He's not a terrible player, just really overpaid. And really stupid. Who can forget his pre-lockout comments? Yeah Bry, I hope you're able to get by now that Toronto's paying you out the ass. Fucking 'tard.

I am still here!

I have not forgotten about this blog OR Nikolai Borschevsky.

Maybe the last title was a bit deceiving.

Haha, I guess we are absentee bloggers. Who knew?

But um, yeah. All three of us are working (Steve pretty much full-time, Jared at like eight hundred different places, and me for the first time ever), and there just isn't a whole lot going on in Leaf-land right now. Since we're using this as a Maple Leafs-only blog and not an NHL blog in general, well, there's not a lot for us to say. Unless you want to hear our thoughts on the Sundin and Antropov contracts, but frankly, I don't give two flying fucks about thinking about that.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are finally over, as the Anaheim Ducks beat the Ottawa Senators. I don't know about the other guys, but I only made one wrong prediction all playoffs (which would be taking the New York Rangers over Buffalo in round two). This, of course, means the OFFSEASON~! is here, which means we should finally have things to write about. Of course, even that won't last too long, and it's still three months before training camp (a time that has never had interest to me, personally, as a hockey fan) and four months before the start of the season, so things may be bare for a little while. I've talked to Steve about opening this up to Toronto sports in general, so that he can blog about the Blue Jays basically daily while I chime in every now and then with "what the fuck why doesn't this guy have a higher OBP trade him now". We'll see how things go on that. I'm open to it just to find more shit to write about here.

But we haven't forgotten (ok, maybe Jared has) about Bring Back Potvin, so if you continually check this blog in hopes that we'll finally write something to kill like ten minutes of your day, don't bail out just yet.

After all, Ottawa didn't win, now did they?

We are NOT absentee bloggers, I swear

Ok, so the truth of the matter is, all three of us are very busy with exams right now. Well, I'm not really, given that I've had the week off, but I have nothing to write about (be it here or my other blog) lately for whatever reason. I'm incredibly apathetic to the NHL playoffs right now anyway. Steve is wrapped up in the start of the MLB season, and Jared... well, I'm not entirely sure what Jared is up to right now. If you could look in some ditches or something so we can try to find him, that'd be great.

Anyway, I guess the point is that we don't want you to think that we've abandoned the cause. We're just a little sidetracked at the moment. So I've embedded this little clip of the glory days to help tide you over until we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Playoffs: Round One

Surprisingly I wasn't ready to axe anything on Sunday, mainly because I'd been expecting the outcome since the Leafs lost on Thursday; I'm not sure if I posted that here though. Anyway, I can't say I was mad (I was heartbroken though), because it was the Leafs fault, they had numerous games in the last few weeks where they could have easily gained a point and ended up in the playoffs - as it was they didn't do that, and now I'm focused in on the Jays (and to some extent, I suppose my exams).

Anyway, as I usually do, I won't just make first round picks, I'll go all the way through.

First Round

Red Wings over Flames (in 6)
Wild over Ducks (in 7)
Canucks over Stars (in 6)
Sharks over Predators (in 7)

Sabres over Islanders (in 4)
Devils over Lightning (in 4)
Rangers over Thrashers (in 4)
Senators over Penguins (in 7)

Second Round

Red Wings over Wild (in 7)
Sharks over Canucks (in 7)

Sabres over Rangers (in 7)
Senators over Devils (in 7)

Conference Finals

Sharks over Red Wings (in 6)
Sabres over Senators (in 5)

Stanley Cup Finals

Sabres over Sharks (in 7)

The NHL Playoffs start tonight

and the Leafs aren't in them, which probably explains why none of us have posted lately. I think we're all pretty distraught and pissed off about Toronto's situation. On Sunday I was very surprised Steve didn't show up at my house with a fucking axe. Come to think of it, if Steve shows up to our exam tomorrow with an axe... I really won't be surprised.

Who is everyone taking for playoff picks? I've got Buffalo, New Jersey, New York, Ottawa, Detroit, Anaheim, Vancouver, and San Jose, in that order.