Analysis

So after a long drawn out debate over the Leafs shut out loss against the Senators last Saturday, I decided that I honestly didn't know enough about where the Leafs were taking most of their shots on goal this season. 10 shots from dangerous parts of the ice

After the Leafs 2-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday night, a game in which rookie netminder James Reimer produced another excellent outing, questions about the young player's immediate future were all the talk. Ron Wilson walked out on his post game press conference over it, and

Ok 9 - 3. I doubt anyone saw that coming. James Reimer making 42 saves on 45 shots in his 3rd NHL game? Sure why not. Mikhail Grabovski, Clarke MacArthur, Nikolai Kulemin all scoring 2 goals? Sure why not. Tomas Kaberle and Kulemin posting 4 point games? Sure why not.

Youth.  Inconsistency. Promise. Growth. Development. These are all areas of concern for the Leafs fan base.  We haven't seen enough of those aspects in certain corners of this year's club. But in reality - perhaps the over-estimation of results stems from expected quality of play on

Guess what folks, so far this season, it isn't Phil Kessel. Most Leaf fans spend their time arguing over the other "top 3" players we need to skate with Kessel, and whether or not that's a valid assertion is debatable. So far this season

Among the many problems the Leafs are facing right now - from breakouts to special teams to scoring - one that has begun to catch my eye is their faceoffs. Currently, the Leafs win 48.8% of their draws, which is good (or, rather, not so good) for 23rd in

Mikhail Grabovski, Clarke MacArthur, Nikolai Kulemin, Phil Kessel, and Kris Versteeg. That's five players amongst the Leafs top 6 forward group, all of whom are on track to produce 20+ goals. Four of them are on track for a career high in goals. Unfortunately so far they'

Breaking down the Maple Leafs' goal against the Montreal Canadiens.

Ok so we all know the Leafs have suffered this season offensively. That being said, most Leaf fans have been pleasantly surprised (or at least impressed) by the offensive output of the Clarke MacArthur, Mikhail Grabovski, Nikolai Kulemin (MGK) line. All three players are on pace for career years and

We follow the Leafs.  We're used to the highs and lows.  We know they go through down spells, and we appreciate the fun up swings, but generally speaking, things level out over time.  The NHL season is a long grind.  82 games, 7 months out of the year.

When I last wrote an update of my work on Zone Hit Ratio to measure the pressure our defense is under, I finished the article by noting that giveaways are probably hurting this team more than any dependance the Leafs might have on their defense to recover pucks. A Plea

How a turnover in the offensive zone turned into the game winning goal against the Maple Leafs.

How long does it take for the Maple Leafs to throw away a late lead? Four seconds.

The normally defensively sound Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski were at fault for Mike Fisher's goal.

The Stars' Brad Richards found himself all alone in the Leafs' slot. Wonder how that happened...

Quick, dirty, ugly... any way you describe the way the Leafs-Preds game unfolded, it all amounts to the same thing: SLUMP BUSTER. The Leafs finally got into the W column, and while they did everything they could to hand it over on a silver platter to the Predators (4 giveaway

Kris Versteeg was unsurprisingly at fault for a goal.

The diamond penalty kill has been awful for the Leafs which isn't really a surprise.

I've noticed confidence waning in these parts.  The fan confidence poll is down to 64 and dropping.  But not all hope is lost, these things come in waves you see.  Think of the season as  series of cycles, the cycle length can vary, but generally speaking teams will

So we've all borne witness to the Leafs atrocious results in the two most recent outings.  They were manhandled by Philly on Saturday and played like warm garbage against a more competitive Rangers side in the middle of last week.  The most obvious thing about those two games

Sometimes a defenceman is better served making the safe and easy pass instead of looking to hit a Hollywood pass.

On the surface, most Leaf fans would argue Phil Kessel. He leads the team with 5 goals and 7 points, and he's definitely the team's most highly skilled offensive forward. Tyler Bozak is the Leaf's nominal top centre ice man, and Kris Versteegthe team&

So far the Leafs are 4-0-0 on the season, and Leafs nation is frothing itself up into a ball of wonderous joy.  I don't really find this to be upsetting, and lord knows we deserve a dose of fun at the expense of the rest of the NHL,

In our collective obsession with the Leafs, we may have lost sight a tad of the rest of the NHL (in our rear-view! HIGH FIVE!).  We still fixate a bit on Ottawa and Montreal, and revel in their weakness, but frankly the rest of the East is nothing to overlook.

There has been and will continue to be a lot of articles talking about ranking players and teams by how well do they on the ice; goals, points, wins, etc... That's boring. Nobody cares about those kind of stats. What people really want to know is stuff like