The Toronto Maple Leafs- Feb 10 2008

Feb 10 2008

Who would have thought it, the leafs actually playing to good games in a row, (be still my beating heart). I have to give the boy’s in blue and white credit; they played a very disciplined game against the number one team in the league last night with Vessa (their goalie) leading the way. He was great and the two goals Detroit did score were both deflections that he had no chance on. The leafs never quit and scored a come from behind 3-2 win.
So let’s recap, they beat the #1 team in the east (Ottawa), then loose 8-0 to Florida who is in the same position they are, then go into Montreal and beat the 2nd place team in the east. Then to top it off beat Detroit on home ice which is the best team statistically in the league. So they have proved they can play some really good hockey at times. That in a nut shell is the problem. The league is so competitive with the most parity of any of the professional sports teams that you can never take a night off or even for that matter a couple of shifts off. The leafs know this all to well as they have likely let 15 points get away from them this year just by having a brain fart for 1-2 minutes during a game. We would not be talking about any playoffs if they had held onto leads they have generated over the season schedule. Even now with all the bad games they have played they are only 6 points out of the last playoff spot. The trouble is there are about 5 teams they would have to leap frog in order to get in which is very doubtful. A math professor at the university of Waterloo who’s name escapes me at the moment did a probability study on the leafs playoff hopes. His findings were ugly and painted the picture of the leafs playoff hopes at a measly 3%. That has likely gone up a bit after the two resent wins. Anyway hold onto your hats as the last 20 games or so could be a bit of a wild ride. My heart says I would like to see them make it in no matter how lean those hopes appear to be but my brain is saying for the long term good of the franchise they should go into the toilet and get a very good lottery position this year. The draft year this year is quite strong with the top five players all worthy of being a player of which you could build a franchise around in the future, Stamkos or Tavares would look really good in a leaf uniform.
Well that’s it for today and these opinions are purely my own
Sincerely Walter Webb.