The Failure(s) of MLSE

Odds are sometime Saturday night or Sunday afternoon when this year's Leaf team is officially eliminated from the post-season, all the usual excuses will come out: the list of players who are playing injured, the guys who were playing over their heads.

Sub-heads will intone, The most man games lost to injury this season (never mind that 100+ of those games are Woz and Peca; this is a team played better with Tucker injured than healthy).

JFJ and Coach Mo will be quoted about how this team of great young guys just ran out of gas.

There will be the usual talk of holding heads high, that this team was expected to be in a dog fight for the playoffs and they took right up until the final game of the season. Right to game 82.

Well, don't believe it.

The playoffs were there for the Leafs to grasp and this team just blew it.

There shouldn't be any excuses when this team comes to clean out their lockers.

This team was most notable for playing as if there would always be one more chance. One more must-win game that they could lose before playing the next one. In a fight for their lives they went an unremarkable and uninspiring 5 and 5 down the stretch.

The best this team could do was play five hundred hockey when it mattered most and that's not good enough.

Losing to Washington 5-1? Blowing lead after lead against the Habs (and then losing in the shootout). The total and utter collapse against the Sabres. Losing to an AHL goalie in Long Island. The Leafs coughed up at least five points the in the past ten games. Those five points would put the Leafs sixth in the east. A post-season lock.

I know the Leafs haven't been eliminated yet and there's still a chance for them to make the post-season, but it certainly didn't need to play out this way (and it certainly isn't looking likely that they'll be in the post-season dance).

That's why when those excuses from the players, coaches and MLSE hit the papers, get repeated on call in shows and fill up message boards, I hope people will question them.

I hope Leafs fans will wonder why nothing was done to solidify the goaltending. Telly dealt and Aubin ignored while Raycroft tumbled along with the 32nd worst goals against average and the 35th worst save percentage. A tendency to go down early combined with a weak glove hand exposed for every team to see.

Ask why the PK was allowed to slide from 17th to 27th without management making any moves.
Ask why the club didn't move O'Neill at the deadline when they scratched him for the final dozen games.

Ask the coaching staff about team discipline (7th most penalties in the NHL - not a good combo with the 27th worst PK) and the inability to hold a lead (22nd worst record in the NHL when leading after 2).

Most importantly, ask yourself if this: is the management team you trust to turn this ship around.

There was a dog fight to end this season, and with one game left to go, this team played like dogs.

They have one last chance to put off those excuses, we'll see what they're made of on Saturday night.