Fighters Have Worn Out Their Welcome

If Burke wants fighters, he’s the GM, he can sign all the fighters he wants, and if he really wants them on the ice, well then be the GM/Coach and play them.

He has all the power to keep Orr on his team, on his ice, but he chose not to.

If he is such an integral part of the game, why send him down?

I wonder if the salary cap helped speed up the diminished role of the enforcer. Pre-Cap, the Leafs paying Colton Orr $1 million to play 5 games was nothing, but now it’s $1 million less cap room.

I like Burke/Wilson trolling the media on twitter, but damn was yesterdays press conference a waste of time. you get a lot of e-mails? issue a press release and save us the speeches.

I have to wonder how much of that comment about Shanahan’s workload was a convenient deflection. We’re probably not far enough into the Shanahan regime to arrive at a roster-modifyingly confident verdict yet, but if one were to make a declaration on the Shanahan record so far, it would have to be that nothing significant has changed, wouldn’t it? I mean, he’s heard how many cases now? Apart from Wisniewski, would any have been out of place under Campbell?

Anyway, whether as the decor of a rec room, or the respective interior and exterior of a station wagon, shag carpeting and wood paneling are great.

The Broad Street Bullies didn’t have a goon in the modern sense of the word, either. Even Dave Schultz hit for 20 goals once.

They were just the most extreme version of a trend that had gone on for a bit. The “Big Bad Bruins” were one of the first teams that would swarm you for going after the wrong person (Orr) and Philly themselves went tough because St. Louis kept beating the tar out of them. Prior to that, Lou Fontinato and Howie Young were pretty crazy and guys like Reggie Fleming were pests that would go.

But yes, generally the people who fought could also play. Rosters were too small to allow for anyone that one-dimensional. The pure goon is pretty much a late-80s early 90s creation. Even Semenko could play some at the start. Tiger certainly could.

For every meathead like Konopka, there is a Steckel, Malhotra and Gaustad (the top-4 faceoff men last year). And for every Carkner, there is a stats equal like Keith Aulie.

Thennnnn, there are the guys with zero hockey skills.

But yeah, imagine how good the league would be if there actually was a Lucic for every Sens 4th-liner, and a Bieksa for every Sens 7th defenseman. Alas, someone has to round out the Top-600.

What did Burke mean about Greenpeace? Something about how the rat population was now free to live their lives without the fear of extermination, or something?

Good line, but he should have used PETA in stead.

Here’s hoping that Lupul gets named to the ASG, but I warned you guys that wasting ballots on Kessel and Heatley was pointless – Heater was never going to make it and Kessel was never going to miss.

But Lupul deserves a spot which is now not guaranteed.

Just about at the halfway point – one more win, and we’re in the top 8 spots halfway into the season, which is a good sign. Let’s turn on those power boosts like last year and get another great record in the second half of the season, as we did last year.

Comments on the game:

- Gus was good, not great; he had great puck support from his defenders, more than a few times I saw them clear the puck when he kicked out a potentially bad rebound.

- Grabbo shows no signs of slowing down, he’s one of our best players day in day out – if we trade him, I want some really good stuff back, because I would personally re-sign him if he wants to stay

- Jets looked tired and were not good. We did a good job (not taking many penalties was a great sign), but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – the Jets were out of gas and it made our job easier. Still two points, though.

I dunno. Burke may lament the loss of the fighter, but if you put in fighters who can actually play and thus maybe not just fight whenever they are on the ice but when it is appropriate, isn’t that a good thing? As for the rats, that’s really on the NHL to fix and lay down ACTUAL suspensions and deterrents to that type of behaviour. Someone like Downie or Ott cheapshots someone, he isn’t going to fight unless it is someone he knows he can punk. Otherwise, he turtles or runs. They have no interest in fighting enforcers.

Also, the fact that there aren’t places for players like Orr could also be taken as evidence that the number of players with skill is finally making up the extra space expansion made. Rolling four lines in the future can only be seen as a good thing for the game.

However, after watching the OT last night in the WJC, I found that if the NHL wanted to eliminate bad hits and make it a skilled game, then just bite the bullet and go four on four. More ice, more end to end and if you make the bad pinch, it’ll be 3-on-1 or worse. Skating becomes the most important thing. I found it a riveting idea to have 20 minutes of four on four if there were no goals.

But yeah, it’ll never happen because it will probably reduce the bench size and NHLPA wouldn’t want that.

A win over detroit would be immense.

everyone in the MSM and their mother is getting their their underwear tied in a knot over Burke calling a press conference for a less than marginal player with no skill, and “what Burke said”. i’ll give you my opinion too.

I’m pretty sure he called the conference because Orr was a fan favourite and i guess he felt that Leafs fans deserved an explanation. and maybe the reason he got so emotional about having to basically tell someone he respects tremendously, has a great attitude and truculence to burn, that his days in the NHL are over and it’s not because of the concussion he just recovered from but because he just doesn’t fit in anymore. As Clarke Griswald once said; “his heart is bigger than his brain sometimes” except i don’t mean it as a backhanded insult. he’s quite obviously extremely intelligent it’s just that his heart is in fact, bigger than his brain.

Also, congrats on project mayhem.

Todd Bertuzzi drops third-party lawsuit against Marc Crawford

The crazy thing about this is that the topic of my Law and Sport class yesterday was violence in sport. We looked at the McSorley and Bertuzzi cases (both criminal and civil for the latter), and then an hour later this story dropped. Also really weird that Burke’s presser was focused on enforcers and “policing the game”.

Anyways, the globe story is a good read. The only real relevance to the case is that, if Bertuzzi is ordered to pay damages, he will now have to pay them himself for sure. If Crawford had been found liable for Bertuzzi’s actions his liability would have been covered by insurance up to $10 million (there’s no way Moore gets that much anyways); Bertuzzi is not covered by the insurance because he pleaded guilty to assault and the insurance doesn’t cover criminal acts.

…check out this tremendous satire published over at the Sun. It’s not like that ol’ fishwrapper to feature brilliant writing (really, publishing anything semi-coherent would just make Steve Simmons feel self conscious) but this piece is nothing short of an amazing send up of churlish, trolling sports “columnists” who claim not to pay attention to online media, but can’t stop talking about them either.

Come for the hilarious assertion that Phaneuf’s inclusion in the ASG is a “joke” that was nearly remedied by the election of Sergei Gonchar; stay for the delightfully dated (and factually incorrect) joke about Torontonians telephoning the “national guard” for assistance with snow removal. Howl with delight at the winking non-references (but they really are references, you can just tell) to Project Mayhem. Brilliant satire.

At least, I assume it’s satire. Nobody would actually write that shit for real, right? RIGHT?

in games not again Boston, Gustavsson has a .910 SV% this season.

like the rest of our team (and league), Boston has destroyed his stats.

How much fun is next year’s World Junior Tournament going to be?

Group A – Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Latvia
Group B – Russia, Canada, Slovakia, USA, Germany

Russia Canada and USA are all in the same group. Craziness.
That also might be the strongest group in WJC history.

Two new articles on the front page.

The Leafs only have seven players with a negative +/-, and two of those players will likely never play again this year (Rosehill, Dupuis). For the past few years, virtually the entire team has been in the negatives. This is a refreshing change.

Holy shit, how did the pens get in 6th?

MF37 and 67ers commenting all over the place?? It feels like old times. If we could just track down Arch and Eyebeleaf all would be right.