Only one team in the entire 30 team NHL went from the last lockout (2004-05) to this one without a single playoff appearance: the Toronto Maple Leafs. Only four teams missed the playoffs at least 5 times: the Oilers (6 times), the Islanders and the Thrashers. One of these teams has a pretty good excuse: …
Tag: Hockey
Rick Nash Trade
So I have been on a business trip this past week and didn’t have time to blog about what will probably go down as the biggest NHL trade of the summer of 2012. (You know, unless something wackier goes down.) But just as an aside, the Rangers re-signed Anton Stralman for 2 years at around …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Nikolai Kulemin
Today the Leafs extended RFA Nikolai Kulemin.
The Best Defense is a Good Offense: the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association and 57 Years of Screwing the Pooch on the Norris Trophy
The Best Defense is a Good Offense On Lidstrom’s retirement, I hypothesized that he might be one of the three best defencemen in NHL history. I did this based on one thing: Norris trophy wins. But the more I thought of it, the more I thought that was ridiculous. The PHWA had just awarded two …
Summer 2012 NHL Trades: Some Thoughts
Ducks: 2nd round pick; Islanders: Visnovsky How the Islanders got Visnovsky for a 2nd pick is beyond me. I guess he had his worst offensive year in nearly a decade last year, so that’s why. But given that he automatically becomes their 2nd best defenceman (that’s a guess), and is an underpay, and lets them …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Schenn for JVR
Aka: The Time Riley Was Totally Wrong About a Leafs Trade Toronto Maple Leafs get: James Van Riemsdyk, 23, LW: 47G, 52A for 99P in 196 games, +13 14:03 ATOI. That’s an 82 game average of 20G, 22A for 42P. Cap Hit: $4.25 million through 2018 Salary: $2.5 million per year in ’13 to $5 …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: the 2012 NHL Draft
There are basically two approaches to drafting that GMs can take: drafting by need and drafting by talent. Let’s think about both briefly before looking at what the Leafs did this year.
The 2012 LA Kings: Do I Have to Eat My Words? And Other Thoughts
Unlike virtually everyone I knew, I was very much on Philly’s side when they traded away their supposed franchise players last summer. (Though not so much when they signed their supposed franchise goalie.) And through the regular season, it certainly looked like I was right. Of course now the Kings have won the Cup and …
The Hockey Hall of Fame Bias towards “Last time we won the cup was…”
The more I went through previous Hockey Hall of Fame admissions for a previous blog entry, the more I became aware of a pattern: the sheer number of inductees who played for a franchise’s last cup winner. Memory is an extraordinarily powerful force and it seems like the memory of a franchise’s “last great team” …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: The 2011-2012 Maple Leafs Report Card
This is my report card for our 2011-2012 Maple Leafs’ season.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Grabovski
I like Grabovski. He is probably my favourite forward on the Leafs at the moment. But liking him has nothing to do with sound hockey decisions and this contract is not a sound hockey decision.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Aulie for Ashton
Keith Aulie traded to Tampa Bay by Toronto for Carter Ashton With this trade, the last non-Phaneuf piece of the fabled Phaneuf trade leaves Toronto.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Phillippe Paradis
Yes, in this day and age, it is extraordinarily unpopular to suggest that Burke’s plan hasn’t worked, as the Leafs find themselves floating between 2nd and 7th on a daily basis and because Kessel (somewhat shocking) and Lupul (unbelievably shocking) are leading the league.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: the ’11-’12 Leafs Preview
Cast your mind back a few years to when Burke was rumoured to be the first choice as Leafs’ GM, despite already having a job. There was a lot of hype by his supporters – and Leaf fans in general – about how he would change things, how he would be different than JFJ specifically.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Clarke MacAthur
As I said last year, signing MacArthur was a great risk. The contract was low, because MacArthur had just won an arbitration award which was then declined. He had everything to prove as he had come in to the NHL after a pretty great WJC but then amounted to not all the much with the …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Matt Lashoff for Alex Berry and Stefano Giliati
Leafs acquire Matt Lashoff for Alex Berry and Stefano Giliati
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: July 2011 Free Agency – to date
Failed to re-sign Irwin: No opinion.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: 2009 Free Agency
Ignoring the players he let go…
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: July 2010 Free Agency
On July 1st of last year, Burke let the following players leave the organization: Deveaux, Exelby, Frogren, Matt Jones, Lundmark, Ondrus, Oreskovicc, Primeau, Rogers, Van Ryn, Wallin and Walser. I have no problem with any of that. Additionally, for some unknown reason, both Mitchell and Brent were left to go unrestricted but then resigned later.
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Tim Connolly
First, a note. I have been on vacation for a week and before that I had a busy June so I haven’t been keeping up with these Leafs posts. Rest assured I will get to them in time. For the moment, I am skipping ahead to the Connolly signing and I will discuss the other …
NHL Realignment
Provided the Thrashers are indeed moving to Winnipeg (and I have no reason to doubt this story because it originated in a paper owned by one of the Partners of True North) and provided no other teams move this off-season, the NHL will have to realign its divisions. How do they do that?
2010-11 NHL Awards
Part 1: Automatic Awards Rocket Richard: Corey Perry Adam Oates (my award for most assists): Henrik Sundin Art Ross: Daniel Sedin Plus-Minus: Zdeno Chara Paul Coffey (my award for most goals by a defenseman): Byfuglien Bobby Orr (my award for most points by a defenseman): Visnovsky Jennings: Tim Thomas Crozier: Tim Thomas
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: 2010-2011 Leafs Season
There has been a recent upswell of support – from fans, from the media, and from hockey fans not normally partial to the Maple Leafs – for Burke’s “plan” in recent weeks, following the team’s remarkable post-all-star-break performance this season. Despite missing the playoffs, the majority opinion seems to be that the Leafs are very …
“Real” Per Game Hockey Stats
Hockey has been very slow to pay attention to per game numbers as a means of evaluating players compared to, say, a sport like basketball, where they are virtually everything. This has been especially true with the Hall of Fame, where longevity and championships (i.e. luck) are favoured above a player’s ability to perform (with …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: End of the 2010-11 Season
Maybe I’m overly cynical. Maybe the Dryden / Quinn / Ferguson years so soured me that I lost all hope – that I cannot even begin to believe that a Leafs team could really contend for the cup. Maybe I’ve lost all perspective. Maybe my claims to big picture thinking are really just rationalizing disguises for …
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Tyler Bozak
The case of Bozak is a really interesting one. It illustrates, for me, both what works and what doesn’t work about Burke’s “plan”. (Sometimes I think calling this a plan or a rebuild is a discredit to these otherwise noble words).
It’s time to start calling Iggy future hall of famer Jarome Iginla
Last night Iginla reached 1000 points for his career. This might not seem like all that much, especially given the large number of people who have achieved this mark since the 1980s. It puts him 77th all-time. He achieved this in more than 1103 games, making him slightly less than a point-a-game player, 103rd best …
Plus Minus Shares
I’m not sure if this will make any sense, as I’m really not well enough versed in statistics, but here goes…
The Campaign to Fire Brian Burke: Media Complicity in Maintaining Fan Delusions
On Blue and White Tonight this evening Gord Stellick said something to the effect of “We can’t figure out how many games the Leafs have to win, they just have to win games. Whether it’s 11-2, or 9-4, or whatever, they have to win a lot of games.”
RIP Rick Martin
For the second time in as many years the Hall of Fame has been exposed for not honouring someone in time. This time the death obviously wasn’t expected, but that doesn’t make it any better. First, they ignored or avoided the opportunity to put Burns in during his lifetime. I really don’t pay attention to …