Dear Maple Leafs: Why Do You Hate Me?

by blurr1974 on Oct 13, 2009 5:01 AM EDT

More nights like Monday and I'll be forced to lock up the silverware drawers. What do you call someone who's all talk? Someone who says all the right things, but never follows through on their promises? A politician? Is Burke an elected official? Can I demand a recount? Losses always cause more questions than answers, don't they? Any answers in the links?

The Truthulence speaks.
Over at Bitter Leaf, mf37 serves up a multitude of reasons for the Leafs horrible start to the season.
Dr. Steve has fun with math and proves that sometimes 4+1 can equal 0.
Leafs Rumination has a few suggestions for Leaf fans everywhere to get through this season together.
Vintage Leafs with more pictures of the past to distract you form the present.
JaredOfLondon has one word to describe last nights game. No, not that word. This one.
Norman James succinctly puts all my thoughts in to words. Get out of my head.
Rob in SoCal gives you his game recap. I might suggest saving those shots of patron for himself. Helps to dull the pain.
Leafs247 gives their two cents on last nights game. I'm wondering if we saw the same one...
Truculeafs throws up their recap and it's every bit the roller coaster ride of emotions as the game.
Kavel Pubina has the audio from the Orr/Brashear fight last night.
TMLCentral gives you a few reasons for keeping your chin up. I can't wait for soon to be now.
Leaf & Lion takes the high road by not throwing Vesa under the bus for last night. Now, throwing him in front of the bus is an all together different proposition.
The Hockey Writers give Burke a few ideas for true truculence, with their list of "the Top 10 Most Effective Sin Bin Dwellers."

UPDATED

The koopa kid has 10 more things to cheer you up. Or make you cry...
See what you've done Leafs? Now eyebleaf is pining for the days of Paul Maurice!

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I’ve got a post to cheer you up, blurr.

(actual cheer not guaranteed)

Old Guys in Blue and White

by koopa kid on Oct 13, 2009 7:04 AM EDT reply actions

I haven’t started to panic yet, but I have started to get angry. Would it kill these guys to play like they actually cared about the end result? They’re playing like a bunch of Timbit hockey players with hippie parents. Some aggression from anyone besides fans would be nice.

by Screaming Will on Oct 13, 2009 7:55 AM EDT reply actions

it's not apathy

they’re terrified.

They have no confidence in each other, the system, the goalie, anything.

Everyone is playing conservative, from the goalie whos afraid to come out of his crease, to the penalty killers who are afraid of being too aggressive, to the defense who’s strategy appears to be “surrender the shot and back off to the point that you’re basically playing goalie, too”

I’m not sure what the solution is. Somebody absolutely said it last night in the thread — they ABSOLUTELY need the first goal. I don’t care, bounce it off somebody’s ass, kick it in, an own goal. They just have to be up 1-0.

I won’t be watching tonight, at any rate.

by pevans on Oct 13, 2009 9:09 AM EDT up reply actions

That’s true, they are playing scared. Holding their sticks way too tightly. I’m more talking about when the whistle blows after Toskala’s covered it and there are two or three guys in the wrong coloured sweaters standing there at the top of the crease. Or how the other team’s forwards can waltz over the blueline and setup plays. Maybe it’s because they’re afraid to let anyone shoot from anywhere, but it just doesn’t look like they’ve put their mean faces on yet. At least not for an entire game.

by Screaming Will on Oct 13, 2009 9:54 AM EDT up reply actions

it’s because they’re afraid to let anyone shoot from anywhere

Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.

by PPP on Oct 13, 2009 10:07 AM EDT up reply actions

I guess it’s hard to concentrate on your own game when you’re too busy concentrating on the goalie’s lack of game.

by Screaming Will on Oct 13, 2009 10:14 AM EDT up reply actions

LINK - BLAME RON WILSON

http://www.sportsandthecity.com/2009/10/appreciative.html

It’s easy, and convenient. I have to blame someone not named Vesa Toskala…

Sports And The City

A Toronto sports blog, where unabashed homerism is alive and well...

PLAYOFFS!!!!1

by eyebleaf on Oct 13, 2009 8:26 AM EDT reply actions

Agreed

There’s so few good things coming outta this team right now, its almost impossible to find. Toskalol looks like he’s inherited Raycrap’s glove-hand, our defence is a joke, our forwards all think they’re rambo in trying to do everything by themselves individually and our “truculence” apparently means we just start fights every 30 seconds. Excelby and Happy Trails are just brutal to watch and Komikazi, true to his name, spends half the games in the penalty box.

by PLAYOFFS!!!1 on Oct 13, 2009 8:40 AM EDT up reply actions

I really hate to say it

but I’ve lost confidence in Toskala for the time being. There seems to be a problem with chemisty between Vesa and the entire team. Whether it’s the Leaf defence being nervous, bad positioning, forwards not blocking shots or taking their man, or Toskala just not being sharp enough at the right time – the combination of this team with Toskala in goal is not working – it’s terrible, in fact.

“It’s a two-way street, they have to bail me out and I have to bail them out,” Toskala said.

There’s something wrong here. I think it’s the words “they” and “them”. It’d sound much better if went like “We have to bail out each other. It’s up to us.”

One pre-season game was too early to crucify Toskala. 4 games is plenty, though, when your numbers look like this:

4 starts, no wins, GAA 5.57 SV.812

I don’t want to put this all on Toskala though. Screw Jason Blake. Even though he had goal last night, he played like crap, and when he crosschecked the Rangers player into Toskala it killed the Leafs momentum and sabotaged a really good team effort in the 2nd period. If Toskala has to go, fine, but someone deserves to go with him. I nominate Blake.

by general borschevsky on Oct 13, 2009 8:27 AM EDT reply actions

General, I fully agree with this. It is almost like it is him vs the team when he makes a statement like that.
I’ll give credit where credit is due, Toskala had some pretty big stops in the first. I thought we even had a chance to win if he played like that all night.
But what seperates Toskala with an elite goalie like Lundqvist is Lundqvist’s play in the second. The Leafs ran the Rangers out there but Lundqvist saved their bacon every time they gave up a scoring chance. If the play was reversed, it would have easily been 7-2 at the end of two.

I’d also like to ask where the “truculence” was last night. Somebody should have sent Avery a message when he potted the 7th goal and proceeded to act like he just scored his first NHL goal. Perhaps they’re waiting to get him back on home ice on Saturday…but I’ll be very disappointed if this goes forgotten.

THE MONSTER HAS BEEN FREED // Read the Blog and follow your Hunger

by Hungry Leafs Fan on Oct 13, 2009 8:52 AM EDT up reply actions

Blake almost saved the game by taking out Toskalol but he was vanquished in his attempts.

To be honest, at least Blake’s out there every shift giving it full gusto.

Like I said in the recap, everyone’s getting stained with the ‘they suck’ label because the team’s losing. Nothing good can be acknowledged when the team is losing.

It begins and ends with Toskalol.

Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.

by PPP on Oct 13, 2009 9:32 AM EDT up reply actions

Blake did have a classless act last night when he bowled over Lundqvist last night. His energy is good, but there’s no need for that type of stuff even if you’re losing 7-2.

by birky on Oct 13, 2009 9:52 AM EDT up reply actions

Meh

He’s doing what no other forward is doing enough of in driving the net. He barely went over Henrik’s leg but Lundqvist threw himself back like he’d been shot.

Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.

by PPP on Oct 13, 2009 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions

Toskala played really well in the 1st and second. that goal he let in at the beginning of the 3rd was a killer, but he’s not the only guy on the team who came out not ready to play last night.

there’s no sense in piling on what’s already known re: Toskala, but to say that loss last night begins and ends with him is not a fair assessment of the turd sandwhich the Leafs threw on the ice in the third.

"Sanity is not statistical." - George Orwell, a Leafs fan...
Stalk me here...

by blurr1974 on Oct 13, 2009 10:11 AM EDT up reply actions

the whole team looks terrible

the effort is not consistent but they just look like they don’t know what’s going on as a whole, no one seems to be playing together and everyone’s doing their own thing, no body has any trust or confidence in anyone else, this is clearly a coaching problem AND also stemming from the fact that the team simply does not have a leader of any sort

by PLAYOFFS!!!1 on Oct 13, 2009 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions

Linkage

Let’s use our negative energy to hate on others!

THE MONSTER HAS BEEN FREED // Read the Blog and follow your Hunger

by Hungry Leafs Fan on Oct 13, 2009 8:46 AM EDT reply actions

I can’t wait for soon to be now.

Beautiful sentiment, blurr. Could’ve been the title for the FTB.

by general borschevsky on Oct 13, 2009 8:59 AM EDT reply actions

thanks

the Leafs have pushed me into a Morrissian (?) mood and I had the Smiths’ “How Soon is Now” on while going through the links…

When you say it’s gonna happen “now”
Well, when exactly do you mean ?
See, i’ve already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

"Sanity is not statistical." - George Orwell, a Leafs fan...
Stalk me here...

by blurr1974 on Oct 13, 2009 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions

Acquisitions

I was thinking in bed last night about who the Leafs could make a push for that could immediately help, not only on the ice but in the locker room. I am not making a trade prediction. But you gotta think Burke is looking for a shakeup.

The best possible fit, I think, would be Shane Doan. He’s making about 4.5 million, and we’d have to give up a few young guns (probably Tlusty, Bozak, and Gunnarson, plus a guy off the current roster) but he’s a natural leader and plays with the type of fire and love of the game I think we all wish the rest of this Leafs team had right now.

Thoughts?

by birky on Oct 13, 2009 9:01 AM EDT reply actions

No. Won’t happen anyway, and if it did, the price would be astronomical.

Leafs Rumination: hockey and sesquipedalianism.

by puckurgently on Oct 13, 2009 9:02 AM EDT up reply actions

NO

WE DONT HAVE 1ST ROUNDERS UNTIL 2012.

TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE!

NO NO NO NO NO TO TRADING AWAY ANY KIDS

by pevans on Oct 13, 2009 9:13 AM EDT up reply actions

Brendan Shanahan.

by general borschevsky on Oct 13, 2009 9:30 AM EDT up reply actions

i like this

"Sanity is not statistical." - George Orwell, a Leafs fan...
Stalk me here...

by blurr1974 on Oct 13, 2009 10:05 AM EDT up reply actions

Sorry

But that’s a crazy move. Plus, the ’Yotes have started well.

Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.

by PPP on Oct 13, 2009 9:33 AM EDT up reply actions

there’s no way we’re getting him, but I love him sooooooo much.

"The only way out is in a body bag. Go Leafs Go." - Blinky

by Karina on Oct 13, 2009 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions

Funny story

The Leafs are so bad they finally pushed me to pick up NHL 10 over the weekend, I figured if nothing else I can take refuge in a fantasy hockey world where my favourite doesn’t hurt me so much… only to have them start off at 0-7-0 in the game.

by PLAYOFFS!!!1 on Oct 13, 2009 9:08 AM EDT reply actions