Just Breathe

Brian Burke is about to make a trade. We know this because a) Burke loves a camera and b) he told us as much.

On January 12 the Toronto Maple Leafs were riding a season high four game winning streak when their general manager Brian Burke naturally decided to stand on his soapbox and announce that he was open for business.

"I'm not interested in getting our asses kicked in the first round." he said, before later in the media scrum adding, "We are looking to add and get better now."

Some general managers might look at a four game winning streak and decide it probably isn't the right time to suggest he is ready to make changes. Some general managers, particularly those in charge of teams that haven't participated in a single playoff game since they arrived, might think getting their asses kicked in the first round might not be so bad. That it might even represent progress.

Of course some GM's also occasionally smile, and some are even capable of offering a "no comment" when asked for their opinion. Brian Burke is not one of those GM's.

Burke was built for reality TV. Earlier this season he made news for revealing he offered to rent a barn and schedule a time to fight Kevin Lowe. It's amazing that HBO has waited three seasons to showcase him on 24/7.

Leading us back to the fact that Brian Burke is about to make a trade...and that scares me.

After seven long years, Leaf fans can finally see the end of the tunnel. The Toronto roster, as it currently stands, is young, quick, talented and not only does it have considerable upside for the future, it's already proving it is legitimate. The Leafs have 2/3rds of an elite first line, an excellent second line, tremendous depth on defence, and decent depth in their bottom six forwards. (As I've been saying for years, goalies don't matter.)

Even the penalty kill, after three and a half years (that felt like seven) of truly horrific play, has come around. Last night's win over Pittsburgh moved Toronto into seventh in the conference, with 6th place Ottawa entirely catchable.

All of which is say that now is not the time to make a two or three for one type of deal that removes multiple players from the NHL roster. Now is not the time to move a comfortable and productive Grabovski. Now is not the time to dangle Kulemin or first and second round draft picks. Now is not the time to play to the media, to put the team on edge, to make a trade only because you've previously indicated you were ready to make a trade.

Now is the time to let this roster breathe.

Now is the time for Burke to show his players the same patience he has shown his head coach.

View From the Top

Leafs Finally Looking Good (For The Moment)


Last night's win by the Leafs not only continued their hot start to the season, it moved them right up to first overall in the NHL. And as of me writing this, hell had not officially frozen over.

Tied with Pittsburgh atop the standings thru 13 games, just about everything is going right for the Leafs. They boast two of the top scorers in the league, have battled through a lot of tight one goal games, the penalty kill has been terrific*, and because of the tremendous ACC crowd, have yet to lose a game.**

*I lied. Ranked dead last percentage wise, the Leafs penalty kill is a joke. This would be really alarming if the PK had been this bad for three years now. What? It has? Moving along...
**Lied again. Not a great job at all by the ACC crowd. Embarrassing would be a much better way to describe all the fake hockey fans who gobble up the best tickets but can't be bothered to actually sit in them until maybe the 15 minute mark.

The few remaining Leaf haters out there (!) might argue that Kessel and company have benefited from a borderline soft schedule, but at least credit Phil and the boys for taking advantage of it.

And credit Kessel himself, who has been dynamic and so far looks like the most dangerous offensive player in the game. Phil has traditionally been streaky as an NHL scorer, but he's never been this hot, for this long. Kessel is a serious threat to score every time he is on the ice. The puck follows him around and he creates scoring chances almost every shift.

Maybe at 24 he is mature enough to transition from streaky-young-player-with-crazy-offensive-potential, to legitimate NHL superstar.

But it hasn't just been Kessel carrying the load. Every part of the roster has contributed. Joffrey Lupul is probably playing above his head, but he has scored at this level before and he and Kessel seem to have developed great chemistry.

After a slow start the Grabovski/Kulemin/McCarthur line has started to pile up points, just as they did at times last year. Phaneuf is playing his best hockey in years and his partner Carl Gunnarson has blossomed. Rookie Jake Gardiner has been just about as good. Before going down with injury, Reimer was proving last year wasn't a fluke. Joey Crabb gets called up from the minors, scores 2 goals in 2 games, and quickly gets perhaps the best nick name in the league (King Crabb).

When you're on a roll, you're on a roll.

If you wanted to try to poke holes in the Leafs you could point to the disappointing performance Luke Schenn has turned in, obviously the PK, and the big summer trade with Nashville that has been a total bust.*

*The positive would be that Matthew Lombardi has bounced back and remained healthy so far after missing all but a handful of games last year with a concussion. Unfortunately he's put up about the same level of production as he did last year when he wasn't even in the line-up. But at least Lombardi is in the line-up, which is a lot more than you can say for Cody Franson. The other half of their return from the Predators was supposed be the bounty Toronto was rewarded with for taking on the minor albatross of a contract belonging to Lombardi. Instead Franson has been in the press box, unable to crack the line-up for all but 3 games, and is rumoured to be trade bait.

But that would be nitpicking, and after an extremely lean few years since the lockout, Leafs fans are more than ready to feel good about their team.

We'll see how long those feelings will last.

The Slappy's

After hearing that I nominated him to replace Gary Bettman as NHL Commissioner, charismatic infomercial showman Vince Shlomi graciously offered to sponsor a new set of NHL awards. Yes, the man who gave us both the ShamWow and the Slap Chop has anted up to help present the Slappy's.

Tonight the NHL has it's annual awards show in Las Vegas and even with the promise of witty and entertaining commentary from host Jay Mohr (hitting you over the head with sarcasm alert), this event is quickly becoming a rival with the All-Star game for irrelevancy. Which is why I, along with Vince Shlomi's money (okay, it was a contra agreement - anyone need a Slap Chop?) am extremely proud to reveal the 2010 Slappy Winners:

The ShamWow Award
Finalists: Lee Stempniak, Ville Leino, Peter Mueller
This one goes to Ville Leino, who was a 'sham' in Detroit but transformed into a 'wow' in Philadelphia. The 26 year-old Finn went from 7 points in 42 regular season games with the Red Wings to 21 points in 19 playoff games with the Flyers, and at times, was the best player in the Stanley Cup finals. Leino's transformation from fringe player to the first line would be like Heidi Montag snagging the lead role in Scorsese's next film. Alright, a better comparison would probably be Judd Apatow's next film, but you get the idea.

The Yoko Ono Award
Finalists: Brian Campbell, Vincent Lecavalier, Shawn Horcoff
This award goes to Brian Campbell, who's onerous contract (6 years and $43 million remaining) is threatening to break-up the Blackhawks. The Hawks salary cap problems have been widely reported and even burying Cristobal Huet's $5.3 million contract in the minors next year won't solve them. Chicago will be forced to trade or walk away from a number of players who were integral to their Stanley Cup championship (Ladd, Byfuglien, Versteeg, Sharp, Hjalmarsson) mainly because Campbell is ridiculously overpaid and therefore, unmovable. Although, if I were Stan Bowman, I would at the very least make some exploratory calls to the finalists for the next award.

The Isiah Thomas Award
Finalists: Brian Burke, Steve Tambellini, Bryan Murray
This goes to the lousiest GM from the past year. No need to build suspense here: C'mon down Brian Burke! Instead of simply signing Phil Kessel to an offer sheet last summer, Burke chose to make a trade with the Bruins that actually cost the Leafs an extra first rounder next year rather than a third rounder this year. But hey, at least Burke can continue to crow that "he will never use an offer sheet", nevermind the disastrous implications for his team. He extended Mikhail Grabovski and refused to fire a coach who may have very well been trying to get into the record books as the worst penalty killing team of all-time. On top of that, Burke acquired a past-his-prime goaltender who will earn $7 million this year at a time when cheap, quality goaltending is in abundance.

Press-Box Hot Award
Finalists: Olli Jokinen, Tomas Plekanec, Matthew Lombardi
Press-box hot, as defined by the great ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons: "there are so few females that cover sports that the ones who do become disproportionately hot to everyone else sitting in the press-box". Well, this same line of thinking can easily be applied to an underwhelming unrestricted free-agent class. Because there are so few quality unrestricted free agents this offseason, a guy like Tomas Plekanec, who had a career high 70 points last season in his contract year (gigantic red flag) somehow ends up with a 6 year $30 million contract. As my friend Frosty emailed me today: "Montreal just got Horcoffed."

My Agent Deserves a Raise Award
Finalists: Roberto Luongo, Miikka Kyprusoff, Tim Thomas, Cam Ward, Tomas Vokoun, J.S. Giguere, Cristobal Huet, Niklas Backstom, Henrik Lundqvist
All of the nominated players will make at least $5 million next year, and if we've learned anything the past few years, it's that the goalie position is the easiest place to save dollars in a salary cap system. In other words, we have a 9-way tie! It will be very interesting to see what unrestricted free-agent Evgeni Nabokov signs for this summer, because the goaltending landscape has changed drastically in recent years. Nabokov might get squeezed all the way back to the KHL if he doesn't want to take a hefty paycut from the $6 million he earned this past year.

Celebrity WAG Award

Finalists: Mike Fisher, Dion Phaneuf, Mike Comrie

This is the big one, the Slappy version of MVP. This was the closest race of all the awards and for once, there truly are no losers. The Mike Comrie/Hilary Duff engagement photos made Comrie the favourite, but the winner is Mike Fisher who somehow convinced the unbearably cute Carrie Underwood to look past his mediocre on-ice stats and goofy friends (Spezza!) and say yes to his engagement proposal.

State of the Leafs: 2010

I started writing report cards for the Leafs, Jays and Raptors in 2004 long before this blog ever existed. Back then I would simply email them to friends. I've always enjoyed writing them, but slowly at first and now quickly there are sports team report cards everywhere. I posted a Raptors edition two weeks ago and it would have been time for a Leafs version but...I can't.

I'm not saying I invented the concept of handing out grades to sports teams (read: I probably did), but I am saying I'm done with them. I'm retiring the report cards and moving on.

I'm replacing them with State of the Union type columns. Of course if they bomb (the articles, not the teams) I have no problem pulling a Jay Leno and slipping the report cards right back in there. We'll see what happens. For now, it's on to the State of the Leafs: 2010.

The last year has been exceedingly rough for the Maple Leafs and their fans. Actually, tough isn't nearly strong enough. It's been a nightmare. A fourth straight spring without playoff hockey (and soon to be five), a number one goalie who wasn't even AHL quality, and a clear lack of goal-scoring ability amongst the forwards have all contributed to the futile state of the franchise.

But that's only the beginning.

Brian Burke, the chosen one, the crusty, egotistical and (previously) successful GM who was hired away from Anaheim in November 2008 and given total autonomy over hockey decisions...has not been able to turn the ship around. He hasn't even offered up his typically crazy sound-bites that would have at least provided an entertainment value that is clearly missing on the ice.

Unwilling to fully commit (or accept?) to a proper rebuilding phase, Burke again swung for the fences this past Sunday, trading for Dion Phaneuf and J.S. Giguere, two players with monster contracts that their previous teams were desperate to move. The trades leave the Leafs with approximately 14 defencemen eating up 98% of the team's cap space and an aging, expensive goalie at a time when nearly every successful team allots minimal salary to a position that can be filled by almost anyone (except Vesa Toskala).

Even worse, Burke's September trade for Phil Kessel coupled with the season-long funk his team has shown on the ice have combined to sap every ounce of feeling out of the season. Leaf fans are not upset as much as they are disconnected. The losing would be sufferable if the payoff - a top three pick - was still an option. You know, a reason to believe, a reason to care. But Burke traded Toronto's 2010 and 2011 first round draft picks to Boston to acquire Kessel. The result is a 2009-10 season that is totally lost. Toronto fans have become zombies, sleep-walking through the season without cause or emotion.

And the players that were supposed to be building blocks for the future, most notably Luke Schenn and Mikhail Grabovski, have regressed. Considerably. Schenn looks completely overwhelmed in his sophmore season, constantly fighting the puck and taking bad penalties at an alarming rate. The supposed defensive defenceman has been repeatedly victimized on one-on-ones and has been a healthy scratch at times. Grabovski, whom Burke curiously signed to a 3 year $9 million extension last summer, has failed to build on his 20 goal season and seems to have more fire in practices, where he routinely fights with teammates, than he does in games.

The rest of the roster is filled with role players (Beauchemin, Komisarek, Primeau, Mitchell, Orr), unproven projects (Bozak, Stalberg, Hanson, Kulemin, Gunnarson, Gustavsson), cap filler (Exelby, Wallin) and the stale leftovers from the Cliff Fletcher era (Finger, Stempniak). The two best Leafs aside from Kessel (Kaberle and Ponikarovsky), are rumoured to be on their way out of town, the next to be traded in the ongoing effort to...what?