On The Sixth Day Of Leafsmas
by PPP on Dec 19, 2010 12:32 PM EST
in 12 Days of Leafsmas
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On the sixth day of Leafsmas
Burkie gave to me...
Six Years of Cheering
Five In A Row!
Four Years of Brad,
Three Luke Schenns,
Two Special Teams
and
A center for Phil Kessel
A Godd Till Joint
This spring the Leafs will, barring a miracle, miss the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year. I came of age during a period of relative success. Relative, that is, to the Leafs' overall performance since 1967. Which is like a good career run for David Faustino since Married With Children ended.I often dreamt about seeing Wendel or later Mats jubilantly hoisting the Cup. Now I just dream about making the #$&%#$% playoffs.
About having special team rankings that don't begin with "twenty-" About not getting stomped by Vancouver twice a year while "Huey" and "Simmer" high-five in the booth. About winning in Buffalo once a decade. About arguing over "who should run the point on the second power play" or "is the backup goalie playing enough" not "is it disloyal to move to rural Cambodia in the middle of hockey season"?
Six years of competence. Six years of playoffs. Six years of being like all the other teams. Six years of cheering.
Is that too much to ask?
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What the hell’s a playoffs?
/written while wearing my PLAYOFFS!!!1 shirt
"Tell Sigmund Freud not to worry about his mother, I took good care of her last night. BOOYAH."
Certified Grabbo lover
I think it’s kind of like overtime.
Lies. All lies.
by betterforsome on Dec 19, 2010 4:11 PM EST up reply actions
Yes
This is what I would die for now and that’s sad.
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
Like reading thoughts confined to 140 characters? I'm on Twitter too.
You want sad? I’d settle for not being out of the playoff race until at least February!
by Robert James on Dec 19, 2010 7:18 PM EST up reply actions
…or not being continually embarrassed every time we blow a 5 on 3 PP…or another PP where we get one shot on goal…or not have yet another bad line change that results in a breakaway, or worse goal… or another game where we were unable to play three periods of hockey…etc.
by Robert James on Dec 19, 2010 7:37 PM EST up reply actions
I think we have consistency
right now, but of the wrong kind! (and I don’t mean to be cute). We’re consistently bad, and this is very maddening. I think every one, from Burke to us, is wondering, what the f**k can we do to get this team in the winning groove? No one, I believe, no one in the world likes to lose. Youth and inexperience could be called a reason for the state of the team, but that’s not the only reason. What is it? I have no idea, either. I can only see the results.
If, in 2004, Vegas offered odds on the Leafs not playing a single post-season game before 2011, I would have taken that bet and lost an awful lot of money.
Bitter Leaf Fan: Skepticism, not cynicism.
You can look at the last two weeks in a “meta” sense and see the same inconsistancy.
Doom Week and we win 3 of 5? Fantabulous
WCWaffle Week and we only win 1? Just not good enough from a compete level point of view.
If, however, you take those two weeks together, getting 8 points is pretty good. Our problem right now is not getting the “right” points. I’d trade the win over the Caps for a win over the Flames in a heartbeat. If we do that, I don’t think anyone is talking about how badly inconsistent we are. Instead, we’re just “a middling young team trying to get better”.
That said, we’ve got a lot of practice time this week with only 1 game on the schedule … this week (not sure what sort of break the team will give the guys to go home for the holidays), so while I don’t expect a great result against the Thashers, I DO expect better things when Jersey is on the schedule after Xmas.
This space for rent...
by fair_n_hite_451 on Dec 19, 2010 3:01 PM EST reply actions
D’oh. Reply fail.
This space for rent...
by fair_n_hite_451 on Dec 19, 2010 3:01 PM EST up reply actions
Good point
Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs blog and a group therapy session.
Like reading thoughts confined to 140 characters? I'm on Twitter too.
Yes.
I think after a 4-0 start, followed by a huge slump, we’ve regressed to our mean: i.e. a team that is exactly or close to playing .500 hockey. For a team like this, that’s about what you can expect.
In terms of getting the ‘right’ points, that comes to consistency in effort. Sometimes, when you play a good team, you’ll give it your best, and you might win; sometimes you won’t. They beat the Bruins two weeks ago with a solid effort, but couldn’t beat the Canucks with a similar effort. That’s just playing against a team that’s better than you. However, the issue with the lesser teams is simply a matter of effort. They dominated play in a 4-1 win over Edmonton, then let Calgary roll over them in a 5-2 loss.
If I’m going to see lacking effort (and it happens to every team in an 82 game schedule), I’d rather see it against teams that are likely to trounce us (think Pittsburgh/Philadelphia losses) than where 2 points can be obtained (e.g. Calgary, our 2 losses to Ottawa).
Visit my blog at: http://50-mission-cap.blogspot.com/
Leaf fan for life! (No, really. They gave me a no-trade clause when I was born.)
by FiftyMissionCap on Dec 19, 2010 7:53 PM EST up reply actions
I remember the days where I got frustrated when this team lost in the second round.
The fact that, 7 years later, I’d give an arm and a leg for a second round exit makes me realize how sad things have become.
Visit my blog at: http://50-mission-cap.blogspot.com/
Leaf fan for life! (No, really. They gave me a no-trade clause when I was born.)
by FiftyMissionCap on Dec 19, 2010 3:45 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
At the time, I didn’t understand all the hand-wringing over losing in the 2nd round during the Quinn Era. A team that finishes in the 2nd round or better every year — which pretty much described the Quinn Era — is a damn good team. It’s not “accepting mediocrity” as the media would like to tell you.
Rec'd
For truthiness.
jrwendelman
The Artist Formerly Known as "Junior", who blogs at heroesinrehab.ca/blog
"But if someone so eager to engage into fist talk, we can always meet after season end in Minsk." (Mikhail Grabovski and a well-meaning but not particularly skillful translator) CERTIFIED GRABBO LOVER
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