Canada’s Debate

It’s been a tough month for me as a Maple Leafs fan. Anyone who knows me well knows that as much as I root for them and follow them, I hold no illusions as to the quality of the team or the operations of its management… I root for the Leafs because they’re the team I grew up with. I’ve got some writing time so I’m posting a short series of articles detailing the Maple Leafs struggles to date.

I suppose then it is only fitting that they are team that I will grow bald and bitter with. Toronto has been abysmal to start the season and there is little reason to believe that they will even be able to match last year’s performance; which earned them an early summer. This comes as a surprise to me to be honest. Last year they missed the playoffs by a single point and this season they added a power forward/drinker and a potentially reliable starting goaltender without losing anything worth missing (Tyson Nash, Yannic Perault)… although the draft picks used to acquire them could have come in handy.

Instead what we’ve witnessed so far is a team that defensively has taken a large step backwards. Much to nobody’s surprise, Toskala has struggled without a clearly defined role, and Raycroft has just plain struggled. Less unsurprising has been the incredibly lackluster play of Pavel Kubina. After several standout years in Tampa Bay he signed on in Toronto (overpriced, but a good pickup at the time) and immediately lost his game. Last season he struggled to find his offensive game, and provided more penalty-kills than offensive output. This year Kubina looks completely lost; getting caught out of position, making poor decisions on the offensive blue-line, and generally struggling to be at the right place, at the right time. This could simply be a result of a player who has lost his confidence; personally I believe he’s spending to much time around Andy Wozniesky.

Andy is a train-wreck on defense. How he doesn’t have a -10 by now I don’t know, but his performance has been dreadful. Ian White will cost you some goals over the year, but he also gives a little offense and stretches out the team leaving the zone… Andy gives you one thing, one boneheaded decision per game. He is too big (and slow) to play a strong skating/positional, and apparently incapable of playing a strong checking game. His in-between nature frequently leaves him in a position where he needs to make a snap decision on how to play, and he frequently makes the wrong one. In Tuesday’s game against the Senators he followed a 2-on-1 down the ice and managed to keep position, but instead of laying out to stop the cross-crease pass after the Ottawa player was past the red line and unable to shoot he opted to stay on his feet in order to maintain his checking position. The puck was passed out in front, and Toronto was already losing. This mirrors an earlier game against New Jersey… Candy (he seems nice enough, but rots you from the inside) was the lone man back on the blue line and the puck was approaching from the boards with a NJ player (some guy with exactly 1 NHL goal) chasing. Wozniesky hesitated before deciding to play the puck; which he missed. The NJ player stepped past him, went in on a breakaway, and scored. Had he not hesitated he MAY have caught the puck and started an odd-man rush, and if he was a Kaberle or a White he wouldn’t have had to hesitate on that play. Instead, he was caught in between, made a decision which isn’t justified by his skill-set or role on the team, and it cost the Leafs a goal.

None of this excuses the forwards however, who have done a dreadful job of following the play in their own end. Antropov, Steen and Stajan always seem to be in position in the defensive end, but that’s about it. Ponikarovsky is usually in the penalty box, Sundin is chasing his man away from the front of the net, Blake is gassed from double-shifting and chasing people around the face off circle… The “checkers” on the team are usually up against the bored and struggling to execute the simplest of clearing plays, and the defense is trying to juggle their own responsibilities with those of the wayward forwards.

All in all, the team’s defense is pretty frightening at this early point in the season.