What's My Scene?

The Leafs don’t have a lot of prospects in the system. Trading away eight of your 10 first round draft picks in a decade can sneak up on you like that.

Forward Nazem Kadri is the closest thing the Leafs have to a blue chip talent.

You’d think when prospects are this scarce their optimal development would be an organizational priority.

But you’d be wrong.

Nazem Kadri gets his second taste of NHL action Saturday night when my beloved Maple Leafs take on the Vancouver Canucks at the ACC. His promotion comes despite Brian Burke and the coach of the Marlies both conceding that Kadri’s not quite ready for prime time. Burke went so far as to say that in an ideal world, Kadri wouldn’t be getting this shot with the big club.

Sadly, under Burke’s management, words like “ideal” and “Leafs” only seem to come together when back-up goalies talk about upcoming opportunities to snare a shut-out.

Now, I don’t think Kadri’s premature promotion will ruin him or his future. I don’t think this is a make it break it moment for the player or the franchise. But I do wonder why Burke and that big brain trust he’s assembled down at the ACC are willing to make such a questionable decision about one of their scarcest resources.

Or perhaps I just underestimate the importance of game 16 in the 2010-11 season.

For me, it comes down to this: if you put player development on a continuum, with the ideal conditions for player success at one end and the worst possible conditions at the other, the decision to promote Kadri falls a little too close to the mid-point than I'm comfortable with. It's not like the Leafs get multiple shots at bringing their youngsters along or like there's plenty more where Kadri came from.

But when the GM and President of your favourite team thinks he can fast track a rebuild, I guess one shouldn’t be surprised to find out the same GM thinks he can fast track player development too.

I can only hope Burke's player development results are better than his 42-54-23 record with the Leafs.

The Wheels on the Bus Have Fallen Off

“If you want to take the bows when the team is winning, then you better take the heat when it’s not winning. It is ultimately my responsibility. I drive the bus, I decide who gets on the bus, I decide who gets off the bus. If the bus is stuck in the ditch, then ultimately that’s my responsibility."
Leafs GM & President Brian Burke

I'll play along...

Before the bus left the station, it was pointed out to Mr. Burke that the brakes were shot and the power steering fluid was low. Burke decided to top up the windshield wiper fluid and take the bus through a car wash before setting off on a difficult journey.

That he ended up in a metaphorical ditch should come as a surprise to no one.

There's no imagination in the blues

Most people pegged the Leafs to be 12th in the East and they're certainly playing down to expectations.

That said, the two biggest and most common question before the Leafs' season started - is Bozak ready to be a #1C and who is going to score for this team - have turned out to have rather ugly answers so far (No; nobody).

It's hard to believe that the Leafs scored more goals (16) in their first four games than they have in their last ten (15). The team is now on pace to score fewer goals this season than any team since the lockout.

One win in their last nine, shut-out three times in their past six. The trend lines are all pointing in the wrong direction.

The worst part is, lots of people saw this coming.

Looking at this mess of a club, to my mind the latest horrific slide appears to come down to:

1. The team has tuned out the Coach. The penalty kill is bad and the power play is a whole new level of atrocious. Too frequently the team comes out flat and isn't coming up with an adequate compete level; and/or
2. Burke has consistently mis-judged the state of the club and applied the wrong "fix." (When the team had three wins in their first 18 games using the NHL's most expensive group of defencemen, acquiring another "stud" d-,an didn't strike me as the club's biggest priority. This off-season, with goals at an absolute premium, committing $3.5M to 15 goal man Colby Armstrong seemed like a horrible use of resources).

Now, if the problem is the former, it's rather easy to address. Put a bullet in Wilson and his crew and move on.

If it's the latter (and the voices in my head are telling me it might be) I'm not ready to go there quite yet...


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Brian Burke's Coaches

I'm not smart enough to know if Ron Wilson is the "problem" in Leaf land. Actually, I'm not sure that there is a so-called problem.

One look at the Leafs' roster and it's pretty clear that goals are going to be tough to come by this year. This is a roster whose first-line centre went un-drafted and has all of 50 NHL games experience.

With so little offensive punch there's no margin for error on the back-end. The lack of firepower makes every mistake in the Leafs' own zone terminal. The Leafs are going to have to win a lot of games 2-1 or 1-0 if they're going to have a shot at the post-season.

Despite the state of the line-up, with just one win in their last 9 games and three years of piss-poor special teams play, the call for Wilson to be fired is growing louder by the day.

I thought a quick look at Brian Burke's coaching decisions in his previous gigs as a NHL GM might shed some light on what, if anything, might happen behind the bench with the 2010-11 Maple Leafs.

Hartford Whalers, 1992-93

This was Brian Burke's first gig as a GM.

Hired May 26, 1992, within three weeks Burke announced a coaching change - interim coach Jimmy Roberts was replaced by Paul Holmgren.

Holmgren had previous NHL head coaching experience, he was the bench boss for the Flyers from 1988-to 1991.

Burke was fired in 1993, Holmgren remained the coach of the Whale until 1996.

Vancouver Canucks, 1998-04

Mike Keenan was the first coach Brian Burke fired.

In January 1999, after a month of hockey that saw the Canucks win 2 of 13 games - a tailspin Burke called, "an unmitigated disaster" - Mike Kennan was shown the door. Burke brought in Marc Crawford as his head coach, signing him to a three-year deal.

Crawford had previously coached the Colorado Avalanche to a Stanley Cup in 1996 and resigned from the Avalanche in 1998.

Burke made no further coaching changes during his tenure in Vancouver.

Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks, 2005 - 2008

Brian Burke was named GM of the Mighty Ducks in June, 2005. Burke offered a one-year extension to head coach Mike Babcock. Babcock declined and signed a multi-year deal just a few weeks later with the Detroit Red Wings.

Burke hired former Leafs defenceman Randy Carlyle to coach the Ducks. Carlyle had been head head coach the Canucks' AHL affiliate.

Of the hire, Burke said: "I wanted to find a coach that matches my intensity level. I hate to lose, I know Randy hates to lose as much as I do."

Carlyle is still the coach of the Ducks.

Coaches Cornered

In three previous stints as GM, covering 10+ seasons of hockey, Burke fired just one coach and hired three. Two of the three hires had previous NHL experience, the third was well known to Burke as the coach of his former AHL affiliate.

I'm doubtful Wilson gets the gate this year. That said, the one thing that's struck me most about Burke's tenure with the Leafs is how often his big moves come as complete shocks - there's no leaks to the press and nobody sees it coming. I don't know what Ron Wilson's fate may be, but I'm willing to wager it will be in keeping with Burke's M.O. and will come as a surprise to many.

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FMU

When I wrote about the Leafs social media strategy for the Maple Leafs Annual I focused almost exclusively on their use of twitter, facebook and their proprietary on-line site "LeafsSpace." I didn't look at their actual on-line content.

MLSE, more specifically the Leafs' web-presence, does a few things very well. The Game in Six is one of my favourite features and I love that they put up video of media conferences, post-game scrums and Ron Wilson's newsers unfiltered. While I'm not a huge fan of the more creative videos done by Steve Dangle, I'm not exactly the target demographic and I've got to give them credit for being creative and trying something new.

When it comes to the written content, that's another story. It stinks. I'm talking ancient hockey gloves moldering at the bottom of an old hockey bag stinks.

To provide textual content, MLSE hired Mike Ulmer, a former Sun columnist, to write "blog" entries about each of MLSE's sports properties.

I think it's great that MLSE wants to provide unique on-line content. Let's face it, they are in direct competition for page views with the on-line sports pages, blogs and a handful of Leaf-centric on-line communities. If they're going to get their share of eyeballs, they need to give readers fresh and compelling content and an actual reason to frequent MLSE sites.

Strategically, MLSE is right on target, tactically it's nothing short of a gong show.

Ulmer's recent piece "10 responses to 'plan the parade jokes'" was like a drunken first draft scribbled on the back of a beer coaster, found the next morning crumpled in a front pocket and mistakenly posted to the web. It was about as funny, clever and hockey-centric as a Cathy comic strip.

His most recent entry, a so-called defense of Dion Phaneuf misses the mark worse than one of Dion's patented bombs from the blue line.

I think Phaneuf is what he is: an above average d-man who's throws a lot of hits, blocks shots, has a terrible shooting percentage and is vastly overpaid. If I had to defend him, Ulmer's piece is not the way I'd go about it.

Let's have a look...

1. Dion Phaneuf hasn’t been very good.
Is that so...

Yeah...with an opening like that, let's hope Ulmer is saving his best stuff for last.

2. He can’t hit the net.
Hardly. Only one other defenceman, (Atlanta’s Dustin Byfuglien) has more shots.

A few problems here.
1. Phaneuf is third in the league in shots behind Steve Montador and Duncan Keith;
2. Having a high shot total and actually hitting the net aren't the same thing; and
3. In point of fact, Phaneuf can't hit the net: he's taken 32 shots and hit the net just 22 times, an accuracy rating that puts him 135th among NHL d-men.

3. He can’t defend.
Well, he’s the ice-time leader on a defence that has lowered its goals against by almost a goal a game, from 3.21 to 2.30. They’re sixth in the league in defence. If he is sabotaging things, he has been very sneaky.

Great points by Ulmer, one downside: Phaneuf's goals against/60 is 3.23, which is nearly one goal higher than the team's goals against average. That GA/60 puts Phaneuf in the lower third of the league - 167 th out of 199 D-men that have averaged 10 minutes or more of ice time in at least 4 games this season. Sure, he's facing some tough competition, but those aren't good defensive numbers.

4. He sometimes takes himself out of position when he tries for a big hit.
Fair comment. Imagine a defenceman wanting to hit someone at centre ice. What is Bob Baun doing these days?

If I was going to defend Dion here, I too would start out by saying that this is a fair assessment of his play, but I might also be tempted to point out that Dion was among the top 10 D-men in the NHL for hits last year and that he's 12th in the NHL to date. He's obviously landing way more hits than he's missing. But maybe that's just me. Can't go wrong with a Bobby Baun joke...

5. He’s peaked.
He’s 25. I don’t think so. I’ve peaked.

Truer words...

6. He will never score 20 goals as he did in Calgary.
Right again. I wonder if it’s because Phaneuf is the focus of every team’s penalty kill. They must be making shin pads of sterner stuff over the last few years because players rush at Phaneuf as if he were a free round of golf.

Phaneuf may never hit 20 goals again and that's ok. How many D-men in the league are capable of putting up those totals? If he can start hitting the net and get close to his career average shooting percentage he should be good for 15 goals a year. As for being the focus of every teams' PK, if that is the case (not sure I believe it), isn't that an opportunity for Phaneuf to put up great assist totals or for the Leafs to adapt to this tactic to revitalize their moribund PP.

7. Why doesn’t he just pass on the powerplay?
To Tomas Kaberle? Seriously, you have a team with a hole in the middle you could park a Hummer in. The first two pivots have one goal between them. Naturally enough, the power play has fallen to the bottom third of the league. The penalty kill is 11th. Let’s see, one special team requires scoring, the other defence. Phaneuf is a mainstay on both teams. It’s like I say about the Almighty. If you are going to blame the Man for the bad things, you have to credit Him for the good. It’s called the Theory of the Divine Defenceman.

Oh snap. I hope Kaberle's dad doesn't read Ulmer's blog. Or maybe Phaneuf could pass to one of the forwards since the other team are supposedly keying on him and taking away his shooting lanes. Just a thought.

8. He’s not a good captain
He didn’t look bad 10 days ago.

Meh. I'm not in the room. I wouldn't have put the C on his chest but I doubt that letter has anything to do with Phaneuf's inability to hit the net with his shots, make better passes on the PP or with his propensity to chase other players behind his own net.

9. He hasn’t scored.
Also true. Here are some names: Nik Lidstrom, Duncan Keith, Bryan McCabe, Dan Boyle, Shea Webber, Mike Green, PK Subban, Ed Jovanovski and Drew Doughty. None of these players have scored more than one goal. I have always said if you’re going to fail, don’t fail alone.

I'm surprised Ulmer didn't go with the "Hey, Sheldon Souray is in Hershey" defence here. As for the other d-men Ulmer listed, they may only have one goal, but it's still one more than Phaneuf. Many of them are putting up points - Lidstrom has 10 assists, Keith has 11. Few of them are getting paid $6.5 million either. Phaneuf's has just 2 goals in 36 games as a Leaf, how does that compare with the company Ulmer's put him in?

10. He keeps shooting wide.
Well, there aren’t too many places to put the puck when a six-four defenceman is sprawling in your way. Compare Byfuglien again. He has a directed 7.7 shots at the net a night: that’s a combination of shots, misses and shots that are blocked. Phaneuf has directed 9.3 shots. It’s tough to criticize a player who is second in the league in shots by a defenceman for not hitting the net. You can fault him for an elevated shots attempted figure, I suppose, although I always thought the idea was to direct as many shots at the net as possible.

Anyone else think we've covered this already? That maybe Ulmer couldn't come up with a 10th complaint so he recycled a variation of his 2, 7 and 9 complaints? Why go with a criticism that immediately reminds me that Phaneuf has just 2 goals in 36 games as a Leaf, was 129th in shooting accuracy last year and is down to 136th this year?

If I was going to write a defense of Phaneuf, I'd look at the Leafs' improved PK, the Leafs ability to limit shots this year, and maybe penalties drawn vs. taken. Something that plays to the guy's strengths. Oh, and access - Ulmer writes for the Leafs. Maybe he hasn't posted his Bruce Dowbiggin mandated $10K bond, but you'd think he might get a quote or two from Phaneuf's team mates about what Dion does well; a line from a coach, GM or scout or even from guys who don't like to play against Phaneuf. Or you could go with the Bobby Baun joke.

Leafs at the 10 game mark

When Cliff Fletcher first joined the Leafs (Gah, nearly 20 years ago!) he often spoke about evaluating a team's performance every 10 games. I imagine it was a large enough sample to see some trends and a short-enough time frame that GMs and coaches could make the requisite changes.

On the eve of the 2010-11 NHL season, I posted a series of questions about the state of the Leafs line-up.

In the spirit of Cliff Fletcher, and with the Leafs hitting the 10 game mark, I thought I'd look back at my early season questions to see if any answers or patterns have emerged...

Have the Leafs finally fixed their goaltending situation?
It looks like the tandem of Giguere and Gustavsson might have what it takes to give the Leafs their first batch of league average goaltending since the lockout. While both have looked spotty at times, they've also put up some timely saves and have held the Leafs in pretty much every game.

Will the special teams finally be special?
The Leafs' PK is clicking along quite nicely. With an 84.8% success rate, the Leafs are in 13th place and just 0.2% out of being in the NHL's top 10.

The Leafs' PP continues to be short-bus special. The Leafs are 24th in the NHL will a success rate of just 11.9%. With goal scoring at an absolute premium, this is one aspect of the game the club and the coaches need to master if the Leafs are to have any shot at success this season.

Will the Leafs D actually play D?
Turns out the answer is yes (so far). The Leafs have done a great job limiting shots - they are 2nd in the league in shots against and 6th in the League in goals against. This is a massive improvement over last season and further evidence of Toskala's incompetence. Given the lack of goal scoring punch on this team it's going to be increasingly important for the Leafs to continue to play outstanding D.

What about offence?
Based on a Pythagorean wins formula, the Leafs are going to need about 215+ goals to have a shot at 8th place in the East. That's a target that's looking a little out of reach for this team. The club is on pace to score just 189 goals*, which would be lowest total since Carolina put up 172 in 2003-2004. (*Yes, the foretasted total is low as the Leafs are coming off back-to-back shutouts, but the main point remains: this club needs offence badly and the current line-up doesn't look like they have the means to generate it).

Is Tyler Bozak a legit option as the number one centre?
Here's what I wrote a month ago:

Bozak looked tremendous in the final half of last season, but how plausible is it that an undrafted kid with 37 NHL games experience will succeed as a #1 Centre in the NHL?

After 10 games, Bozak sure isn't looking comfortable or productive in the #1 slot. Unless Bozak miraculously finds his a-game, landing a top centre, or more top 3 offensive talent, will be Burke's biggest challenge.

Has Burke misread the tea leaves again?
I thought so leading into this season, as I wrote a few weeks back:

This past off-season, Burke looked at the team and thought a scoring winger, preferably with size, was the team’s most pressing need. Yet, out of the four centres on the club, none seem prepared to handle the tough minutes. Grabovski is a serviceable #2, but there a plenty of questions of size, strength stamina (and sanity) surrounding Grabbo. In the #3 and #4 slots, the Leafs are going with John Mitchell and two AHL cast-offs. This does not seem like a recipe for success.

And it hasn't been a recipe for success. Bozak has struggled as the top pivot, Grabovski is without a single goal 10 games in and Zigomanis has been demoted to the Marlies. It's clear the Leafs need big help up the middle.

How will the kids develop on the Marlies?
I have no idea.

Hanson and Caputi are back up with the Leafs; Gunnarsson looks like he should be sent down. Kadri is improving but has been held pointless in too many games. Oscar Mueller has been benched and called invisible...something to keep an eye on when we check back in at game 20.