Remember 1993?

Hi all,

Last year, after the Phaneuf and Giguerre trades I started to think about the Leafs' 1991-'92 season. I remembered the Leafs were absolutely horrible that season until Jan 2 1992 when Doug Gilmour and several other players came to The Leafs as part of a blockbuster trade. Almost immediately the Leafs started to improve, win more and play more exciting hockey. Of course by the time Gilmour et. al. had joined the Leafs it was to late for a playoff run, but there was a sense that things at Maple Leaf Gardens were turning around.

I'm actually more of a lurker than a poster on PPP, but last year I, and many of the posters on PPP started to feel a renewed sense of optimism after the Phaneuf and Giguerre trades. The Leafs had been terrible to watch prior to the trades, but suddenly they started to play a more solid brand of hockey and more importantly, they started winning more frequently, I remembered my impressions of the '91-'92 Leafs and went to the Hockey Reference website  and found  that the 2009-10 and 199-92 seasons had followed a remarkably similar arc, absolutely horrible in the first month,  (3-8-1 in 91, 1-7-4 in '09) improving to horrible for the next couple of months, and then really improving and playing over .500 hockey after the respective trades were made. In fact the 1991-'92 and 2009-'10 Leafs both finished the season with 30 wins 30-43-7 in '91-'92 and 30-38-14 in '09-'10.

I was very hopeful at the start of the season, that the 2010-'11 Leafs would mirror the exploits of the amazing 1992-'93 Leafs that once again made us all proud to be fans. This year started off well, with four consecutive wins (in '92 the Leafs started at 1-2-1) but you all know how the next several weeks went. I had totally lost my optimism by November 6 when Jochen Hecht of the Sabres tied the game at 2-2 with 14 seconds left resulting in a Leafs shootout loss

The last couple of weeks we have seen the Leafs playing much better again, so just on a lark today I thought I'd look at the '92-'93 season again. Guess what I found.

After 30 Games;

1992-'93  12-14-4

2010-'11  12-14-4

While wins are a bit easier to come by in 2010 than 1992 due to the shootout, the record after 30 games is identical. I've been superstitiously knocking on wood the whole time I've been writing this, but I'm wondering, could this season still be like '92-'93? In my opinion, hope is still alive.

I think I'd be pretty happy if the Leafs beat Detroit in the playoffs again this year wouldn't you?