Leafs' Logic Strikes Again

What's wrong with this train of thought? When the Leafs have a player like the 28 year old John Pohl (who I like but is unbelievably expendable) why would they think about trading 23 year old Matt Stajan just so that they can sign the 33 year old Mike Peca who is coming off of a major knee injury?

Here's a look at the players that are currently on one-way deals with the Leafs: (Note: Eddie's figure represents the last installment of the buyout)

The Leafs aren't really that close to the cap because one forward and one defenceman will start the season with the Marlies. What kills me about the article is this BS:

There's only one problem. With more than $48 million (all figures U.S.) committed in salary to 23 players for the 2007-08 season, Toronto has pushed itself as far up to the $50.3 million cap as it would like. Short of dumping a one-way contract into the minors, there is no room in the vault or on the roster for Peca.

These are the Maple Leafs!! They have money to burn! They can sit a couple of million dollars in Ricoh Coliseum without batting an eye. It is the Leafs' easiest way to get around the salary cap.

That does not even bring up the idea that if they have roughly $2M in cap space why do they need to clear any more room? Is Peca going to be making close to what he made last season? He just came off his second major knee/leg injury and was not that effective last season. Yes, he would improve the PK but Blake also contributes greatly to an improved PK and the upgrade in net will play a big part in shoring up a PK unit that went downhill fast after Peca's injury.

My main problem with this deal is that after JFJ has held off trading actual young players (unlike picks who are only theoretically young players) he is now potentially going to let a Toronto drafted player that has improved every season. The marginal benefit gained between a healthy Peca and the Stajan of last season is not enough to justify letting Stajan's potential go.

I cannot wait until we trade Steen in order to sign Lindros!

Leafs v. Avalanche: Pre-Game Thoughts

The Avalanche pay the ACC a visit on the back of two straight losses and apparently neither one was very pretty. Jose Theodore has had a rough go of things over the past two games and tonight should be no different considering his 5-10-2 (with three ties pre-shootout) in 23 appearances against Toronto. The Leafs are averaging almost 40 shots a game so if Propecia doesn't bring his 'A' game this could be a third straight high-scoring affair. The Leafs have lost the top spot in team scoring to the Sabres after last night's 9-1 crushing of the Flyers which has already led to some blood-letting. Here's hoping for a matching outburst to bolt us back into the lead!

Tonight, Mats Sundin will be honoured by the club for scoring his 500th goal. He has already gotten a nice pair of cufflinks which is nice but, along the lines of Bitter Leaf Fan's thoughts, maybe Canadian citizenship would be the greatest gift.

Injury Watch
Michael Peca will be in the line-up which will hopefully mean that we will see a much better defensive effort from the second line. Nik Antropov and Ben Ondrus are both still making their way back from the IR. Not that either one of them will drop back into forward lines that are starting to click. It will be interesting to see what happens to both once they are completely healthy. I would imagine that they would each get a two week conditioning stint at the Ricoh. As for the defencemen, no news on Carlo but Kronwall skated and it hurt a lot. It seems that with the time he has taken to return from an ankle sprain that he might have the dreaded 'high ankle sprain', a condition which is notoriously tough to recover from fully.

Predictions:
The Leafs will again frustrate with less than 60 minutes of effort but will still emerge victorious. Toronto hockey fans will get to see former St. Mike's Majors deity Peter Budaj when he comes in to relieve a shell-shocked Joey T.

6-2 Leafs: Mats (2), Tucker, McCabe, Steen, Peca

The End is Nigh!

After two weeks the seemingly interminable pre-season is nearing it's end. The Leafs have a home and home starting tonight in Detroit before setting the roster. The staggering amount of games played (from six to eight) can only be viewed as a corporate cash grab that does nothing to make a coach's decisions easier (a couple of games would serve to confirm a coach's pre-conceptions) and puts players at risk (Evgeni Malkin separating his shoulder and Joe Corvo breaking his foot are two examples).

However, because of injuries to the defence corps and a few open spots among the forwards, not to mention the Great Backup Debate, these last two games will offer up a few interesting stories to follow:

1. How will Andrew Raycroft deal with being 'The Man' in the hockey fishbowl that is Toronto?

These back-to-back games will be the first real look at this year's version of the Maple Leafs. We will get a good idea of how Raycroft will look behind a revamped defence and how he will do against one of the top teams in the NHL (32 saves against Montreal is nice but it's Montreal)

2. Will the players on the bubble cement a spot?

Andy Wozniewski will get a couple more shots to show that he deserves one of the open spots on the blueline. Bates Battaglia has probably done enough to get a fourth line spot but now is not the time to take his eyes off the prize. Especially considering that Jeff O'Neill is now on the bubble because of inconsistency throughout the pre-season. And Sergei Berezin Redux is going to have to show more offensive potential. If Suglobov can play a tight game, create chances, and NOT MAKE BLIND BACK PASSES then he will be a good bet to stay up with the Leafs.

3. How will the top line of Sundin, Ponikarovsky, and Wellwood fare?

This is going to be Maurice's top line. The key to this is whether Poni can keep up his play from the end of last season and whether Welly can make the transition to the wing despite taking a few good licks this pre-season. Maurice has already said that he will be getting the captain a lot more ice-time so the chemistry that this line develops will be key to the Leafs making a good start to the season.

4. Will the addition of Peca pay off?

Last year the Leafs had the 24th ranked penalty kill. This pre-season, largely without Peca, the Leafs are ranked 26th. However, he has already shown that he has the potential to single handedly turn this stat around by being a part of 15 straight penalty kills in his two pre-season appearances. Oiler Fans love to bash the Leafs for this pickup but if the Leafs can make serious progress in the PK then he will be worth every penny of his salary.

We Did It!

Peca a Leaf!
That's right, JFJ has succumbed to the combined forces of common sense and fan pressure. According to Kenny Campbell, the Leafs will today announce a deal at 11am to sign hometown boy Mike Peca for one year at $2.5M. The best part of hearing this last night on Sportsnet was that infamous Leafs hater Sean McCormick (Update: Maybe we are having an effect there too. This makes two straight non-antagonistic posts in a row from Seanny.) had to announce the departure of another key piece of the Oilers Stanley Cup run and to Toronto no less. The best part of reading the news was this:

The Peca signing also ends the possibility that Jason Allison will return to the Leafs.

I guess JFJ reads these blogs.

These signings put the Leafs up to a payroll of $42.8M (salary cap of $44M) which leaves very little wiggle room for making any deadline deals if we have any injuries (knock on wood). Although, that $1.2M translates into a much higher salary since the acquired player would have already been paid all his salary save for his last two or three paycheques.

JFJ was doing his best impression of a student cramming by doing most of his summer's work in one day. Here are the rest of the signings that he completed yesterday:

Kyle Wellwood
Finishing 9th in the NHL in rookie scoring (11-34-45 in 81 games) and second on the team behind only Alex Steen has earned Kyle a two-year deal worth $1.75M. That translates into a $875K cap hit per season.

The good news is that the deal is one-way so Wellwood looks to be a feature on the team for at least the next two seasons. He will also have a larger role on the second powerplay unit where he will get to exhibit his passing skills.

Jay Harrison
After a good spell of eight games in which he was +5 Jay is poised to get a shot in the third defensive pairing. I spoke to his brother over the Christmas holidays and at that point it seemed like Jay was tired of Quinn and ready to move on to get a shot. Hopefully this season will see him claim a permanent spot on the blueline.

Brendan Bell
He got the same two-way, league minimum deal that Harrison did. He only got one game in last year during the Great Marlie Defencemen Tryout so I am guessing that this will give him one more year on the Marlies to keep showing the kind of potential that saw him collect 6-37-43 in 70 games last year. He is a fellow '83 so he is still has some time to put in on the Marlies (since D are such notoriously slow developers)

Carlo Colaiacovo
This bit is interesting because Carlo only signed a one-year, TWO-way deal. Previously, he was almost traded as part of the Raycroft-Rask deal for Nick Boynton. And most importantly, he does not feature in my forthcoming potential lines. Three strikes against Carlo means that JFJ will probably continue to shop him around in an attempt to get something for him.

Kris Newbury
File this under "Who?". Apparently, he is "gritty" and a "winger" so maybe this is JFJ's solution to the Sundin Question. Either way, it is a two-way deal so he will have to earn that top line spot.

Matt Stajan
Not signed yet but,

"We've discussed something longer than a year," Ferguson said. "Things are ongoing with Matt and we'll see where it ends up."

I think the 'new' NHL has really suited Matt and look forward to seeing him improve on his 15-12-27 in 80 games (+5!). I am glad to see that JFJ is tying our young centremen to something more than one year qualifying offers. Stajan will be anchoring the fourth line but Maurice will have a lot of high energy wingers to choose from in fleshing out the unit.

JFJ's Plan
Holy crap, this looks like it might indicate a plan:

"We're looking to be a harder team to play against," Ferguson said. "We've added and we're continuing to add to that part of the game."

Generic but at least it is something.

Who is Eklund?

HockeyBuzz.com
This is a new site for me and this Eklund guy is apparently much like Homer Simpson's Mr. X. He has tonnes of rumours and usually they are wrong (see Lindros/Carter Rumours).

However, here is another guess of his: Peca AND Carter signing with Toronto is "Entirely Possible". I know, be still my heart. The fun part of this rumour is going to the comments section and seeing deluded Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, and Buffalo fans calling Leafs fans deluded. The best 'pot.kettle.black.' comment comes courtesy of buffalo(who joined the website TODAY), Apparently in order to get this dig in: (my replies to this clown in bold)

I live in Montreal as well but I love the Sabres...been a fan of them since 1973 (clearly this is a lie since only 14 year old girls use more ellipses than this guy)...but one thing I will say is that Montreal fans (and Buffalo fans...in the games I went to at HSBC they say more than; hit him...hit him!! (this is actually funny because my buddy yells this at the TV a lot), like all Leafs fans only say as they pile down beer after beer!), management and overall history is 10 times better in Montreal than Toronto (yeah, the Leafs fans at games are a bit quiet during the regular season since it's very corporate but I have been to all three rinks during the playoffs and the Gillette Centre and Alphabet Arena do not hold a candle to the ACC in terms of noise. Also, ten times? when did montreal win their 130th cup? I know I know, 24-13 is a big gap but that 24 is not going to get bigger for a LONG time)...the Leafs are not even close to winning a cup right now (Montreal is also nowhere near being close)...not since 1993..why would any veteran want to go there?? (more teenage drivel)...at least in Montreal it's guaranteed that they will win the cup again...just because their the Canadiens!! (they are closing in on matching their all-time dryspell. And 13 can easily snowball into 40)...the Leafs would have to get Dave Keon out of retirement (my all time favorite Leaf) just to make the playoffs! (stupid Montreal fan, Keon HATES the Leafs)...JFJ is a laughing stock out here in Montreal, do you think the Habs would ever hire this guy to run them?? (No, they would let Rejean Houle trade Patrick Roy away for nothing, ok, Jocelyn Thibault)...Gainey is a good hockey man and will most likely take Montreal back to a Stanley Cup again within 3-4 years...watch and learn Toronto (I will be taking notes but 3-4 years sound optimistic at best, deluded at worst),....and I am saying this as a fan who would cheer for the Leafs to beat the Habs if it came right down to it, butwould not be sad if the Leafs lost.. as for my beloved Sabres, we already have a championship team (speaking of delusion)...all we have to do is sign them, and go through the motions of playing out another year of regular season games before it will happen (Too late. bye bye McKee and Grier, arbitration for Briere? Looks like that dynasty is not going to last too long)...the Sabres have never in their history had a team like this (yes, that is true. Buffalo has never had a Stanley Cup winning team since they entered the league in 1970. Wait, that is pretty close to 1967. Hmm, I guess that whole people in glass houses thing applies), so if I was Peca...where do you think I would want to play?? Toronto or Buffalo/Montreal? (Buffalo's recent history includes missing the playoffs three of the past four years. The best that Montreal has been able to achieve in the past seven seasons are two upsets over the brittle Bruins and four seasons out of the playoffs. Suddenly, making two conference finals out of six playoff appearances in seven years seems a lot better. Also, there is that pesky hometown team thing that drives other fans insane.)

Well there you have it. Idiot fans abound both in Leafs Nation (maybe if we start calling someone the Evil Empire our streak will end) and in insert team name Nation. However, why do the others always have to turn everything into an anti-Leafs rant? It is almost as if they are more anti-Leafs than pro-Their Team (I am looking at you sens nation).

Personally, I will reiterate my request to JFJ to sign Peca. Carter is a bonus but Peca would be gold.

Leafs Moves, More Leafs Hate, and My Sportsnet Beef

Roberts and Peca
Everyone's favourite Star reporter, Kenny Campbell, is reporting that the Roberts deal is dead. To some this will seem like a sad day (I was in this camp initially) while others will see it for what it is: a break from the Leafs usual MO - acquiring old guys. Granted, Roberts is no Phil Housley but a lot of what he would have brought to the team can be found in the team's latest target Mike Peca.

Peca brings the same kind of grit and 'sandpaper' as Roberts and will possibly sign for less than the $2.25M that would have been due Gary. Age is also a big factor, 32 compared to 40, because it means that if Peca is a success that we could get a couple more years of his services while Roberts is clearly running out of time. Finally, the young Leafs, such as Wellwood and Stajan, would benefit greatly from having Peca around. Let's hope JFJ gets this done.

Bates Signs
The only Leaf challenging Carlo for toughest last name to spell signed a two-way deal for the league minimum this coming season. Not surprising as the Leafs salary cap issues (see Toronto Truthiness for a closer look. I will have an updated version soon) dictated that they would probably have to fill out the roster with league minimum salaries. As the article notes, he was key to the 'Canes run to the final in 2002 and he has put up some impressive numbers in the AHL. With former coach Paul Maurice back in charge he will definitely get a fair shot in camp alongside Ben Ondrus (another league minimum salary) for the role of fourth line checking winger.

The Antro Deal - "Not That Bad"
Poor Antro. So much hate is aroused when his name is mentioned. The mere sight of him on screen gangling about drives my father insane. So of course his one-year deal at $1M/yr set the rage in motion. However, if you take a look at a similar deal in which the New York Islanders gave Chris Simon $1M you will see that it's not such a bad deal. And yes, I know that doing something better than the Islanders is not saying much.

Last year with the Flames Simon put up 8-14-22 and a +/- of 0 in 72 games. Meanwhile, with the Leafs Antro put up 12-19-31 and a +/- of +13 in 57 games. As well, Antro had developed a great partnership with Ponikarovsky on the PK, something that Simon does not do. Hopefully, he can build on his momentum from the end of last season and put together a year indicative of his development.

More Leafs Hate
Sean McCormick ("The Big Dude" - man, could you try and make a more pathetic nickname as an on-air personality?) is an Oilers fan. We know this because he blogs for Sportsnet as an Oilers fan. We also could figure this out because of his bitterness and irrationality regarding the Leafs. As I noted earlier, when the Pronger rumours mentioned Toronto he erupted. Now that Peca is in discussions with the Leafs his anti-Leafs rage is off the charts. As many of the pro-Leafs comments pointed out, the Oilers were punching above their weight in the playoffs and they have already lost some key components. Plus the Oilers BARELY made the playoffs while the Leafs barely missed them. McCormick makes it sound like Peca is leaving the late 70s Flying Frenchmen for the expansion senators just because he grew up nearby.

"The Big Dude" needs to get a grip. The Oilers have gotten worse (lost Pronger, lost Spacek) while the Leafs have gotten better (got Raycroft, got Gill, got Kubina) and now Peca's potential move will shift the balance moreso towards the Leafs. Jim Lang sums it up best.

My Sportsnet Beef
Basically it boils down to Scott Morrison being fired. He is smart, articulate, and knowledgeable. Instead you keep Nick Kypreos. He is none of those things. In fact, he is the greatest cause of me screaming at the TV and changing channels. The guy retired because of a concussion. Clearly everything up there has not settled. If I could, I'd Zidane him.