Vesa Toskala Ruins Everything

I thought we were smart for sending Bryan Murray over there but it turns out they were already planning a reply.

I want to smother him with a man purse

I wrote something about this and I wasn’t allowed to post it :(

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?
Track twenty-nine
Boy, you can gimme a shine

Cut the guy some slack! You can’t be mad at a player for playing well.

Even though VeTo let in too many soft goals earlier this year, the truth is that a LOT of the goals that other teams were scoring were goals that he had no chance on. Remember the first month or two of the season when other teams were passing the puck cross ice through the box for a tap in like six times a game? No goalie can get those, they are a failure of team defence. I maintain that the excessive and prolonged vulnerability to those goals got VeTo out of his usual game – back in the net, trying to be able to go side to side faster – which led to further problems with his positioning and angles.

And our team defence has failed, from time to time. Don’t give me any crap about numbers of shots and so on – statistics are fine, but they’re no substitute for watching the games and drawing conclusions based on what you see. The failures and struggles the team had, and that VeTo had, are no big deal, they are the natural result of a young team and the players are still gaining experience. Many of them have been asked to do things that their talent would not ordinarily permit them to do, on a team that had more depth.

Toskala can be included in that group of “players being asked to do too much”. He’s a little guy without a ton of previous experience in the league. The lack of a credible backup (sorry CuJo, you know I love you) meant that VeTo was getting run out there every night. It was too large a workload for him at this stage in his career, particularly when he was struggling with his game.

The point is that no man is an island. All of these things are related. Toskala sucked because the rest of the team was struggling to find its way.

We were never going to get Tavares. We just don’t suck that bad. Yet. Don’t be angry at the players for doing what they are told to do and trained to do – to go out there and compete. I love it that these guys can’t turn that off.

The key is for Burkie to re-stock the draft pick cupboard now (and before the draft), to the extent that he can. Then the scouting staff has to make effing sure that they make the most of the picks that we do have.

Getting mad at VeTo is ridiculous, in my humble opinion.

it’s official – he can’t play well for a whole season. he sucks until February, then lights it up and fools everyone (myself included) into thinking he can be a good goalie. if he had played this well all year we’d be battling for the playoffs. if he hadn’t decided to step it up all of a sudden, we’d still be in the tavares hunt.

him and his finnish “i’m so laid back nothing bothers me not even completely failing at the job i’m being overpaid to do so i’m not even going to practice hard” attitude can fuck right off.

his save percentage is almost equal to Raycroft’s now….