Leafs Pre-Season Schedule and Discussion Thread

[Brew666]

the worst part about the leafs?

"hey! defence wins championships, so let's trade for another defender or 3....scoring will come by committee..."

when you have Tyler Bozak as your 1st line centre, you are in trouble. serious trouble. and i like the kid...as a 2nd or 3rd line centre.

also have problems with this mentality that you need 2 lines of scoring, 1 line of plugging and 1 line of grit. if you have talent (i.e. look at the Hawks or Capitals) you have 3 lines of scoring and 1 line of grit/plugging.

even better? the leafs are coughing up their pick next year. while Kessel is a very good player, Burke clearly overvalued last year's line-up, which is horrible assessment by the team's GM. that trade alone should have cost him his job. it will be fun to watch the Bruins kill the Leafs for years to come - that's what two 1st round (high 1st round) draft picks will do - make a team competitive.

Burke still thinks that guys like Bertuzzi win championships.

pre-season will highlight the lack of talent the Leafs have. this is be a painful season.

Agree with it all. I cried when I heard about the Kessel deal. Ok, maybe I just punched a wall and THEN started crying, but still...it's painful. There's not a whole lot positive to look forward to for the Leafs. I really just want Wilson out of here. he's gotta go before Burke imo.

Trust me I'm not happy with the Kessel deal but at the same time it's only one move. You still need to build a good team and seeing what Burke did with the American Olympic hockey team last year, I trust that he can still build a competitive team. Every GM will make deals that are good and bad. It's a bad move but you can build a winning team that includes Kessel and you can have a losing team that includes Seguin (and Rask).

And as for Bozak...ya I dont like the idea of him being our #1 centre but at the same time it proves that the different routes that Burke is taking to fill out the team are working as well. He's looking down every avenue and is prepared to make this a better team.

Like any young team, they should get better as the season goes along...and if we don't start off with a 7 game losing streak we should be competing for a playoff spot...I see us finishing 9-11 in the east

[ontnut]

the worst part about the leafs?

"hey! defence wins championships, so let's trade for another defender or 3....scoring will come by committee..."

when you have Tyler Bozak as your 1st line centre, you are in trouble. serious trouble. and i like the kid...as a 2nd or 3rd line centre.

also have problems with this mentality that you need 2 lines of scoring, 1 line of plugging and 1 line of grit. if you have talent (i.e. look at the Hawks or Capitals) you have 3 lines of scoring and 1 line of grit/plugging.

even better? the leafs are coughing up their pick next year. while Kessel is a very good player, Burke clearly overvalued last year's line-up, which is horrible assessment by the team's GM. that trade alone should have cost him his job. it will be fun to watch the Bruins kill the Leafs for years to come - that's what two 1st round (high 1st round) draft picks will do - make a team competitive.

Burke still thinks that guys like Bertuzzi win championships.

pre-season will highlight the lack of talent the Leafs have. this is be a painful season.

Agree with it all. I cried when I heard about the Kessel deal. Ok, maybe I just punched a wall and THEN started crying, but still...it's painful. There's not a whole lot positive to look forward to for the Leafs. I really just want Wilson out of here. he's gotta go before Burke imo.

Trust me I'm not happy with the Kessel deal but at the same time it's only one move. You still need to build a good team and seeing what Burke did with the American Olympic hockey team last year, I trust that he can still build a competitive team. Every GM will make deals that are good and bad. It's a bad move but you can build a winning team that includes Kessel and you can have a losing team that includes Seguin (and Rask).

And as for Bozak...ya I dont like the idea of him being our #1 centre but at the same time it proves that the different routes that Burke is taking to fill out the team are working as well. He's looking down every avenue and is prepared to make this a better team.

Like any young team, they should get better as the season goes along...and if we don't start off with a 7 game losing streak we should be competing for a playoff spot...I see us finishing 9-11 in the east

Yeah we need a goalie bad...too bad the one we drafted is only the best one in the league.
Yeah we need some influx of young players...whoops...I'm surprised Burke still has a job, but I give him credit for working really hard to make it up by signing every talent in the hopes of finding a diamond in the rough. I like the model for his players, but we need some forwards, and not just guys who fight.

[hsb]

Leafs trim roster to 30 players

Here are the remaining players at camp:

GOALTENDERS
J-S Giguere
Jonas Gustavsson
James Reimer

FORWARDS
Phil Kessel
Tyler Bozak
Kris Versteeg
Mikhail Grabovski
Nikolai Kulemin
Clarke MacArthur
Colby Armstrong
Fredrik Sjostrom
John Mitchell
Nazem Kadri
Christian Hanson
Colton Orr
Mike Brown
Luca Caputi
Tim Brent
Jay Rosehill
Mike Zigomanis

DEFENCEMEN
Dion Phaneuf
François Beauchemin
Mike Komisarek
Tomas Kaberle
Luke Schenn
Carl Gunnarsson
Brett Lebda
Danny Richmond
Jeff Finger
Matt Lashoff

Read more: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2010/09/ ... z10hpdKmxY

[YogiStewart]

someone do some research....
toronto has 2 talent lines, 1 d-oriented and slightly-beefier "D" line and one violent "plugger" line.

do teams still follow this mentality? i'd assume that most teams would aim for 3 talent lines and 1 plugger line.

seems like Burke really is set on having a grind-out style of hockey here

[Brew666]

someone do some research....
toronto has 2 talent lines, 1 d-oriented and slightly-beefier "D" line and one violent "plugger" line.

do teams still follow this mentality? i'd assume that most teams would aim for 3 talent lines and 1 plugger line.

seems like Burke really is set on having a grind-out style of hockey here

Not too sure...maybe Philly? But I think the key is having players that can skate. You can be big but you gotta be strong on your skates.

[sh00n]

someone do some research....
toronto has 2 talent lines, 1 d-oriented and slightly-beefier "D" line and one violent "plugger" line.

do teams still follow this mentality? i'd assume that most teams would aim for 3 talent lines and 1 plugger line.

seems like Burke really is set on having a grind-out style of hockey here

Not too sure...maybe Philly? But I think the key is having players that can skate. You can be big but you gotta be strong on your skates.

The main difference is Philly's whole team is full of pluggers that can flat out play. Richards, Hartnell, Leino, and surprisingly Briere and Giroux all bang while supplying the bulk of the team's offense.

And even so, I don't think that's the way you win hockey games. You have to have a strong defensive core and two strong lines and a grindout line that can be your #1 PK unit. You also have to be lucky and have some guys that are underpaid, but as a whole I think the Leafs are taking the wrong approach to building their team. Can't win games when you only have one line that can score every night.

[hsb]

A record of 4-2-1 so far, with 2 more games left of pre-season.

Last game was one of the more entertaining ones. Kadri was on the top line and had 2 goals and an assist. Kessel scored late for the win.

[darth_federer]

Kadri is going to the Marlies with Finger is confirmed. He ll be called up if theres an injury and if hes playing well

[darth_federer]

The defense is overrated. If you look at them on paper, they should be a top 10 unit in the league. Its not just Leafs homers saying that, its the guys on the TSN panel who agree too. But guys like Komisarek, Phaneuf and Beauchemin are not getting it done.

7 goals is unacceptable even if its Rynass in net. Its like they have to score 4 or 5 a night to win each night.

[j127]

The defense is overrated. If you look at them on paper, they should be a top 10 unit in the league. Its not just Leafs homers saying that, its the guys on the TSN panel who agree too. But guys like Komisarek, Phaneuf and Beauchemin are not getting it done.

7 goals is unacceptable even if its Rynass in net. Its like they have to score 4 or 5 a night to win each night.

Try telling that to the Toronto Maple Leafs message board on mapleleafs.com, LOL. Not all of the posters, but I can confidently say that a majority of them think defence isn't a priority AT ALL. They think the only things the Leafs EVER have to improve on is offence and goaltending. Sure, those are definite areas we should always try to get better at doing, but it seems like defence is meaningless to them.

And despite what others say, I strongly hold on to the opinion that defence has been our weakest position, even more than goaltending (with Toskala in net). Our defencemen are pylons or inanimate concrete blocks. Worse than the Raptors defence, and that's saying a lot.

[hsb]

Pre-season is over with a win against Detroit's AHL team.

Winning record aside, the team does not show much promise going into the season.

Versteeg seems to be a steal though and ready for the next step with more minutes on the ice.

Someone can start the first game thread or I'll get one up, 4 more days until the new season against Montreal on CBC.

[darth_federer]

I dont know if this board is active enough for game threads for each game. Maybe Yogi needs to pull an Ozzy and get some traffic here

[hsb]

I used to do monthly game threads last year, but for some reason a mod deleted them. Anyways, yeah, should make a thread on the Raptors board during game time.

[Brew666]

Alright, I'm sure the peeps in here have seen who got sent the Marlies, who's staying, etc...It's obvious fluff when they say that vets have to earn their spot if they want to make the team...Mitchell had a horrible camp and Hanson was much improved. It looks like this move was made b/c Hanson is on a 2-way and Mitchell on a 1-way and would have to clear waivers...are they saying that vets have to earn their spot for motivation or is it just juice for the fans? Don't really see anything unexpected here...Finger maybe goes down when Lebda returns from injury? Unless of course another one of our D goes down

In case you haven't seen the final roster, here you go:

Forwards
Versteeg – Bozak – Kessel
Kulemin – Grabovski – MacArthur
Sjostrom – Brent – Armstrong
Orr – Brown – Mitchell
Zigomanis

Defence
Phaneuf – Beauchemin
Kaberle – Komisarek
Schenn – Gunnarsson
Finger

Injured: Lebda and Lashoff

Goal
Giguere
Gustavsson

Headed to the Marlies: Hanson, Kadri, Caputi and Rynnas.
On waivers: Richmond, Rosehill and Zigomanis

Mirtle from G&M was saying Zigomanis has been waived but is still with the team, as per PPP...not sure what exactly that means though.

[YogiStewart]

dudes, gonna close this up and start a reg season thread using Brew666's post