When we left The Leaf: Blueprint in the final episode of the season, the outlook was melancholy yet hopeful. The episode was about the departures of James Reimer and Dion Phaneuf, and all of the resulting changes that came swiftly thereafter. The episode was a solid ending to a very good season of TL:B, which means that this season has large shoes to fill.
During the summer, the position of producer of TL:B came open. I don't know who (if anyone) was hired, but the new guy had to live up to last season's fine work. This first offering from the new producer was a relatively slim 11:25 episode, taking us quickly from the draft, through training camp in Halifax, to the away season opener in Ottawa. On the plus side, it still refuses to descend to the Patriarchial Male Overvoice Guy depths that haunt productions from teams like the Penguins' In the Room and Road to the Winter Classic. Thank you, Maple Leafs.
On the minus side, I found the emotional heft of the episode strangely muted. Last week, I wondered what kind of fuss would be made about a certain new guy's record-breaking night. The answer is, not much of one. In fact, the final scene of the episode shows Auston Matthews holding four pucks in a stack, while over him, Mike Babcock’s voice speaks sternly: "We need to be way, way better than we were tonight, and we're going to get way better." Um, okay, but don't forget to recognize a few achievements along the way? No? ""It's great to have fun on the journey getting there, but we're not there to celebrate anything less than [the Stanley Cup]," Shannahan says, at some point.
So this episode took a hard line on celebrating Matthews, and basically didn't. In the words of Matthews to a reporter at the draft, "Hockey's a team game, so there is no savior." Lou Lamoriello reiterates this point during the episode, saying his infamous and calm, "I don't think there's any player that's going to be the face of this franchise. The logo is the face of this franchise." So we really aren't being encouraged to linger on the joy of a number one overall pick -- we're being shuffled right along, the higher goal firmly in mind: the logo on front instead of the name on the back.
Production-wise, this lack of an emphatic emotional high did no favors for the video, but it was traded in for a dose of cautious rhetoric instead. Thanks, Lou. We get it. This new producer also doesn't quite have the graceful handle on an episode’s story arc like the last guy, but once again, we get it, and we're in it for the long haul.
Questions that remain:
Are we to expect more frequent, shorter, Blueprints this season?
Will we ever be able to pause and enjoy the smaller victories?
How often will we hear "The logo on the front" this season?