Behaving Economically?

I've been reading a lot of books on behavioural economics and decision making lately. Can't say I'm any smarter as a result, fact is I'm often rather confused when any math symbols pop up, but there certainly have been numerous studies, anecdotes and learnings that will come in useful as idle chatter at my next cocktail party*.

As I'm sure many of you do, when I'm reading a book on game theory, artificial intelligence, foreign policy or behavioural economics I like to ask myself: what could this mean for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Ok, maybe that's just me...I'm not sure if my Leaf filter is a genuine problem or if it's a heuristic that helps my aging brain better understand the subject matter at hand. I'd like to think it's the latter...

Out of the reading I've been doing lately, a few items have stayed with me and do seem to have some sort of application to the world of sport:

1. Herbert Simon's early work on problem solving and production systems;
2. Anchoring, especially as it applies to pricing;
3. Discounting (Hyperbolic v. Exponential); and
4. Favourite longshot bias.

Decision Making and Player Development

I've been a big proponent of the Leafs keeping their youngsters in developmental leagues for as long as possible. Not only does it give the players the opportunity to play big minutes in every situation (PP, PK, ES, etc.), it can also extend waiver eligibility, often doesn't exhaust a year of the player's entry-level contract, and if the player is in the CHL, their contract doesn't count against the 50 player limit.

In the late 1950s, Herbert A. Simon was exploring "solution by recognition" and the following passage made me question the best way to condition a young athlete, like say a Nazem Kadri...

One can train a man so that he has at his disposal a list or repertoire of the possible actions that could be taken under the circumstances...A person who is new at the game does not have immediately at his disposal a set of possible actions to consider, but has to construct them on the spot - a time- consuming and difficult mental task.

The decision maker of experience has at his disposal a checklist of things to watch out for before finally accepting a decision. A large part of the difference between the experienced decision maker and the novice in these situations is not any particular intangible like “judgment” or “intuition.” If one could open the lid, so to speak, and see what was in the head of the experienced decision-maker, one would find that he had at his disposal repertoires of possible actions; that he had checklists of things to think about before he acted; and that he had mechanisms in his mind to evoke these, and bring these to his conscious attention when the situations for decisions arose.

Most of what we do is to get people ready to act in situations of encounter consists of drilling in these lists into them sufficiently deeply so that they will be evoked quickly at the time of the decision.”

I think your typical sports talking-head would refer to the experienced decision-maker as a "wily vet"and the challenges of the novice as "rookie errors." But what it comes down to, is ensuring players have a thoroughly developed and refined repetoire of possible actions.

Of course, the big question remains: is this accrual of experience and list-building best done at the AHL or NHL level?

Anchoring

Anchoring refers to the core information an individual refers to when making an initial decision. Individuals often have a habit of over-relying on a single trait or a single piece of information in their decision making process. This is especially true when it comes to our understanding of value pricing, for example:

People tend to have an "anchor" price for most products, and judge them in relation to that anchor. For example, if you expect a laptop computer to be about $1,000, the $750 model might look like a bargain, but if you were anchored on $500, it'll seem expensive. Some products have very stable anchor prices (milk, bread), others change often (most electronics).

Dan Ariely has some great writing on how established prices set an initial value that consumers are usually unwilling to move from.

For years, sports teams in weaker markets, especially those with attendance problems, have given away tickets. While that tactic may generate revenues through increased concession sales, parking, souvenirs, etc. it may create a larger challenge: it effectively establishes the value of a game ticket as $0.

If you're a Panthers fan and can get free tickets by showing your Florida State drivers license, the Panthers have effectively established the value of their tickets as $0. How many people would be willing to pay the face value to attend the next game?

I think the anchoring is one of several challenges facing the Toronto Blue Jays.

For years, Toronto was awash in free Jays tickets through sponsors, potential sponsors, vendors, give-aways, etc. As a result:

1. All of these comped tickets were included in the attendance counts, inflating the Jays' attendance numbers; and
2. For many baseball-going Torontonians, it established the value of a Blue Jays ticket as $0.

I'm a walking case study in anchor pricing: I've rarely paid to go to a Jays game, getting my fill of free tickets each year, and the last time I took my family to a ball game, it cost me $28 for four tickets at Safeco.

I've clearly established my anchor price for major league baseball and it's going to be tough, if not impossible, to get me to pay $22 for an awful bleacher seat at the Dome, never mind shelling out $44 for field level seats.

Looking at the dismal attendance numbers, I get the feeling I'm not alone.

Discounting

The two types of discounting that are particularly interesting to me are hyperbolic versus exponential discounts.

Not to beat the Phil Kessel trade to death, but I think it's a good fit here. In discounting, there is a tendency to prefer immediate payoffs to those that may take time to realize - immediate needs outweigh anything distant or abstract. Or as Greg Muller so nicely puts it:

The core question is how people penalize various options for having a ‘delayed payoff’. Would you rather have $30 now and $50 in five years? Implicit in the decision-making process is that later payoffs aren’t worth as much. You might need the money now more than later, or there’s a risk you won’t get the money later, due to death/bankrupcty of the source/etc. The drop in value of a payoff due to the delay involved is called the ‘delay discount’....[people] tend to over-prefer options with more immediate payouts, which should be no surprise to anyone who has interacted with humans before.

I have no idea if any of this entered into the decision making process behind the Kessel trade, but considering the Leafs have traded away 50% of their first round picks in the last decade, I have to think there's some sort of discounting going on as the team prefers to address immediate needs at the cost of a supposedly uncertain future.

The Favourite Longshot Bias

I'm not much of a gambler. For my NCAA bracket this year when I came across matches that were simply too close for me to call I turned to Vegas sports books and chose the team with the better odds. I finished in the top third of the pool (well back of the money) but, more importantly, I once again lost to my NCAA basketball loving wife.

I had presumed that by turning to an informed audience, that is people who bet on sports, I might have a better chance at winning or at least getting an informed opinion.

But then I started reading about the favourite longshot bias, the tendency for gamblers to over-bet on longshots and under-bet on favourites (this approach would have been rather fruitful in the first few rounds of the NHL playoffs, especially in the East).

One of the reasons suggested for over-betting on longshots is that gamblers are enamored with risk.

Once again, putting on the Leaf filter, I think the favourite longshot bias partially explains why GMs acquire players in decline. Case in point: was there a longer-shot at recovery than Andrew Raycroft? The phrase "longshot" doesn't go far enough to define the odds of him ever returning to Calder Trophy winning form, yet three GMs have employed him in his post-Boston decline (two of whom are no longer GMs).

In terms of risk, his decline in price (and term) certainly helps explain why Mike Gillis would ink Raycroft to a deal.

So called "risk-love" (the opposite of risk-aversion) is often associated as the cause of over-betting on longshots and certainly explains Raycroft's UFA contract in Colorado.

Unfortunately, neither value nor risk-love explain JFJ's terrible deal to acquire Raycroft.

Which leads me to the other rationale often cited to explain the longshot bias: bettors misunderstand, or simply cannot understand, probabilities.

I think JFJ is firmly in the latter camp, possibly because he was a rookie GM unfamiliar with "solution by recognition" and he miscalculated the discount by preferring the immediate solution of an NHL starting goalie in 2006 to the longer-term payoff of developing Rask into a better starting goalie in 2009...

As for my reading habits, I'm reading George Orwell's Essays and am in the midst of a brilliant piece on Charles Dickens, but for the life of me I'm struggling to figure out what it has to do with the Leafs....

*more likely to get me really weird looks at the grade school doors as I wait to drop-off/pick-up my kids.

You're older now and you're a clever swine

As I get older, I find it more and more difficult to take pleasure from the suffering of others. For some unknown reason, I don't find myself actively hoping for the bad guys to fail.

Of course, there's something to be said about having your hunches confirmed.

Darcy Tucker TOI: 15:27 0G 0A 0PiM -1 1 shot
Andrew Raycroft .766sv% 7.00 GAA

I Thought There Was a Virtue in Always Being Cool

The Leafs may be kicking-off a brand new season in Detroit tonight, but before we move on to the theme of renewal, blank slates and fresh starts (and ultimately loss, hey it's the whole circle of life thing), I want to turn the clock back a few months and ask a rather pointed question: where's the hatred for Darcy Tucker?

You don't have to go far to find criticism of the other Leafs who refused to be traded at the deadline. You don't even have to leave the Barilkosphere, just look here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Mats gets it, McCabe gets it and someone actually woke Raycroft up and told him nap time is now on the Avalanche's bench .

But where's the indignation over Tucker?

I don't see it on the blogs and I have yet to see any circle the dates (January 29, 2009 for those of you keeping score at home) or "will they or won't they boo Tucker?" articles in my local sports pages.

Dude was the lynch pin of the problematic Corson-Green dressing room schism, should be front in centre in the lack of leadership debate, refused a trade at the deadline, refused to waive his NMC in the off-season, refused to help this franchise re-build and finally demanded a buy-out that saddled the Leafs with a cap hit through to 2013.

You read that right: 2-0-1-3. You could get a university degree, finish most professional schools (law, dentistry, medicine) or if you have a baby this season it would be starting school by the time Tucker's pay-out wraps up.

And this from a self-proclaimed team-first guy.

For all of these failings, for how he stuck the Leafs there's nothing but silence...

Doesn't anyone else find that odd?

Something I Learned Today

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of the truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. - H.L. Mencken

When it comes to going public with bad news, there are two types of organizations:

1. Those that deal with it in an open and transparent manner – Tylenol is the oft-cited prototype in this camp and, much more recently, Maple Leaf Meats have shown the merit of being open, honest and accountable.
2. Those who leak, bury or misdirect the news in an effort to control the message.

I’d say my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs usually fall into slot #2.

And what are some of the best tactics to get in front of a bad news story?

1. Release it late on the Friday of a long-weekend;
2. Release it when there’s a lot of other bad news in the system; and/or
3. Leak the bad news early and leak it often – by the time the news becomes official or confirmed, most people will have moved through the five stages of grief from anger to acceptance.

When it comes to the Bryan McCabe trade, the Leafs have gone for door number 3 like the RIAA going after a 12 year old with a USB drive full of Jonas Brothers mp3s and the outcome, strangely, seems to be acceptance.

What’s that Smell?

The first time I went to Kamloops I was visiting an old friend who had just gotten engaged.

Kamloops stunk. Figuratively and literally.

The town is essentially a bowl built around a pulp mill. The scent of reduced sulphurs permeates everything.

The first few days I was in town, I kept asking my friend how he could live in a place that, um, stank. I don't mean to be cruel, but everything was tinted with the malodorous combination of cabbage and rotten eggs.

But then a strange thing happened: the smell seemed to go away. I no longer spent my days with a crinkled nose and worried brow wondering how people live among such a paralyzing stink.

Except the smell never went away.

The town still stunk of the by-products of supplying the world with 477,000 tonnes of pulp related products.

I just lost my ability to detect the stench.

Scientists call this phenomena olfactory adaptation or olfactory fatigue. Our nervous systems are programmed to automatically desensitize to certain stimuli so that we are not overloaded. For example, our skin doesn't constantly sense our clothing and our noses eventually get used to the gagging stink of pulp.

By turning down a response to certain or constant stimuli our bodies are better able to recognize and respond to new stimuli/possible threats.

If you've made it this far and are still reading, you may be asking yourself what pulp products, bad odours and olfactory adaptation have to do with the Leafs.

Stick with me here...

In Leaf Land it's not Pulp, it’s the Stench of Failure

I wonder if maybe Leafs Nation is undergoing a massive case of olfactory adaptation.

That we've become so used to the smell in these parts that they don't notice it anymore.

Slam McCabe all you want. Link to the youtube compilation videos of his various gaffes. Mock his haircuts, goofy faces and penchant for taking dumb penalties.

Go ahead and cringe at the burden of his no-movement clause.

But then step back and look at the numbers.

Three out of the last five seasons, McCabe was among the top 10 in scoring by a defenseman; three times he finished in the top three for goals.

Believe it or not, McCabe placed third in Norris trophy voting in 2004 and ninth in 2006.

He cracked the taxi squad for the 2006 Canadian Olympic squad. Bitch and moan all you want that he wasn’t in the top six on that club, but to be on the Canadian Olympic team is to be among some pretty elite company.

Despite all of these accomplishments and accolades, McCabe’s no-movement clause has allegedly so diminished his value that the Leafs had to include a draft pick in order to complete the deal.

Bottom line: the return for a number 2 d-man, power play quarterback, who can log 20+ minutes a night, who has a history of finishing in the top 10 in scoring (and who occasionally scores in the wrong net) is nothing more than a 3-4 d-man who’s recovering from multiple wrist surgeries.

And the Leafs had to throw in a 4th round pick to get the deal done.

As Steve points out in his latest entry, and as I posted earlier this summer, the trade does nothing to solve the Leafs' log-jam on D where they're approaching the season with nine NHL caliber defencemen (10 if you think Schenn might get more than a cup of coffee with the big club).

Anyone that hasn't been living under a rock can tell you that the Leafs don't need more D; they don't need cap flexibility; they don't need to shed more draft picks.

And yet, that's what they get for a top pairing d-man.

The Toronto Maple Leafs: A Rich History of Horrible Asset Management

I cannot believe that I’m going to cite Damien Cox here, but he has a point (ick). The Leafs have moved a pretty big chunk of talent/assets off their roster in the last few years. Consider:

• Belfour
• Domi
• Tucker
• Wellwood
• Rask===>Raycroft (should have been ===>ECHL but for the Avs)
• McCabe

All gone for nothing more than Mike Van Ryn and a series of lingering cap hits.

If shedding all of those players for nothing weren't bad enough, Fletcher has spent even more assets to spackle over the same holes:

• Mayers for a third round pick
• Grabovski for a second round pick
• Schenn for a second and third round pick
• a Fourth round pick to kiss McCabe goodbye

Changing the Culture: Buying High and Selling Low

I understand that management is trying to change the so-called culture of this club.

They gassed the coach (could only talk a good game), waived Wellwood (uncommitted, soft); bought-out Tucker (washed-up, psychopathic) and bought-out Raycroft (glove hand not good enough for mite T-ball).

But I’d argue that the real cultural change is far more urgently needed in the executive corridors of MLSE than in the locker room.

When Fletcher first came back to the Leafs, it was with a real sense of confidence. I loved his candid approach to assessing the team. I loved the moves he made at the trade deadline. I thought PM had to go and Wilson was a pretty solid replacement.

And then things regressed back to the norm. This team has a long twisted tradition of buying high and selling low, a philosophy that, once again, has stained all of Fletcher’s moves this summer.

The Leafs' story remains too many assets out the door with too little to show for it.

And the McCabe trade is just one more deal where the Leafs come out on the losing end.

Fletcher said last Tuesday: "Trying to build a team can't be fast-tracked."

He may be right, but he's demonstrating that it sure can be chronically mismanaged.

Back from Holiday Edition: What did I miss?

As the four or five of you who read this blog know, I took a quick holiday to the west coast for two weeks. I ended up without an internet connection during my time on Vancouver Island and came back to the news of the Wellwood, Tucker and Raycroft moves (and a new found appreciation of just how much time I spend attached to the interwebs).

The Raycroft move is about 10 months too late and about as exciting as stale vanilla pudding.

As I wrote here 18 months ago, extending Tucker was one of JFJ's many blunders, giving him a NMC was unconscionable.

A train wreck at ES, useless on the PK and of declining powers on the PP, I'm fine seeing the back of #16. Before we get to Wellwood, I'll just pause here to await all the angry blog entries on how Tucker's refusal to waive his NMC has hurt the Leafs rebuilding efforts and saddled the club with a six-year cap hit...ok, um, well, moving on...

Wellwood's move to Vancouver is good news for Whitespot franchises in the lower mainland, sports hernia surgeons and the Sedin sisters. Leafs Nation can now sit back and wonder if Wellwood will be this decade's Steve Sullivan: a small forward who puts up big points in the regular season, turns invisible in the playoffs and routinely cited by the media as further evidence of Pat Quinn's MLSE's malfeasance.

Free Agency (not so Free)
I'm guest-hosting over at PPP today and unlike my fellow co-hosts Greener and Chemmy, I like what the Leafs have done with their UFA signings so far.

As rumoured just about everywhere, the Leafs inked Curtis "Methuselah" Joseph to a one-year $700K contract.

It's not a blockbuster/showstopper/wow sort of signing, but it buys Pogge one more year in the minors, gives the Leafs some cap space and keeps Peddie and Tannenbaum happy as it will sell lots of jerseys. (Look for the Leafs marketing department to squeeze every promotional once out of this signing and look for Curtis Joseph's massive eyebrows to be gracing all things Leaf).

Joseph put up a sv % of .906 to Raycroft's .876 (no, that's not a typo) and a GAA of 2.55 to Raycroft's 3.92. If Cujo can put up similar numbers in spot duty to Toskala, he will be a much welcome presence.

In terms of the cap, Raycroft's buyout of $533,000 and Cujo's bottom-dollar $700K salary combines for a paltry $1.233M cap hit for backup goaltending. Remarkably, that's one million fewer dollars than MLSE paid Raycroft to sleep on the bench (and sleep through the few portions of the games he played) last year. A nice savings and a nice change of pace...

The Leafs second signing of the day is a bit more contentious. The Leafs signed Jeff Finger to a 4 year, $14M deal that carries a $3.5M annual cap hit.

Finger is a D-man I was really hoping the Leafs would sign (albeit for $2M per year).

He finished the season playing on the top defensive pair in Colorado and is an ideal #3 or 4 guy: great at ES, eats about 20 minutes of ice a night, can hit, blocks shots, is big and tough and has a good right-handed shot from the point.

He may not have played 100 NHL games yet, but he led the Avalanche in on/ice v. off/ice +/-, GF60 and was second in GA60. To put up those stats playing 20 minutes a night makes me a happy man.

Did the Leafs massively overpay? Yes. By a good million to $1.5 million a year (UFAs are always overpaid. It's a sellers market)

Does it matter? No, not with the cap growing to $57M this year. MLSE has piles of money, if the kid doesn't work out MLSE can bury that contract in the minors.

The Leafs ended the day signing former Dallas Stars winger Niklas Hagman to a four year $12M deal that carries a $3M annual cap hit.

Another deal that's a-ok by me.

Hagman has missed fewer games since 2001 than Cola has played (well, maybe not, but it's close). He can play either wing and put up 27 goals last year, including 4 SH markers and 8 game winning goals (leading the Stars in that category). That's solid production for a guy getting 15 minutes of ice per game. He's also only 28 years old.

By my (very poor) math, the team has $9.5(ish) million in cap space at the moment.

That said, Cliff Fletcher told Bill Watters that Bryan McCabe is not in the Leafs' plans for next year. So call it $14.5M in cap space.

Fletcher told Howard Berger that the team would like to add another forward and at least one more defenceman (an unsigned Euro that hasn't played in the NHL - any guesses as to who that might be?) so it should be an interesting few months as the Leafs continue to change the face of their organization.

Take one step and miss the whole first rung

The Leafs 6-2 loss to the Snoozin' Bruins may help answer a question that has puzzled me since February 26: how many must-win games can one team actually lose? Based on the season to date and the attendant media nonesense, my guess is three, maybe four.

The Leafs coughing up six (rather ugly) goals to the Bruins marks the first time Boston has potted a six-spot since November. It may also mark a very sad day at the CBC. With the Leafs out of the playoffs, I foresee mass layoffs down at the CBC and a move to a 24 hour cycle of nothing but Mr. Dressup, the Friendly Giant, Trouble with Tracy and King of Kensington re-runs.

As for the draft v. playoff-drive debate: the Leafs are six points out with five games to go. More importantly, the Leafs are five up on the Islanders who sit in 26th - the final spot that has a (remote) shot at winning the draft lottery.

If I were coach or GM, it would clearly be Raycroft time (hint: scan down to 75th spot to find him).

Waivers v. Buy-Outs (with a small update)

I thought I was watching NHL Classics last night, a repeat from last January when the Leafs beat the Bruins 10-4. (As an aside, I actually managed to see that that game via sopcast whilst eating paranthas and drinking chai at a very early breakfast in Hyderabad, India. It's a very odd feeling when an NHL game finishes at 9 AM.)

Here's a bit of a quirky factoid: the same day that the Leafs pasted the Bruins 10-4, the Canadian Juniors beat the US in the semis when Carey Price stopped Peter Mueller in the shoot-out.

Fast forward 14 months and on the night that the Leafs paste the Bruins for a second time, Price bests Mueller again in their first match-up since that World Junior shoot-out game.

Buyouts? Really?!?

I'm not sure why there's been so much talk about the Leafs buying out various players. Wharnsby was guilty of this in yesterday's Globe, it's a talking point in Cox's most recent mailbag and it was a featured element of Steve's (otherwise great) blog entry on how he'd re-build the Leafs.

Buy-outs have become bit of a zombie issue to me - no matter how many times you think you've killed them, they just keep coming back.

So long as there's such a thing as the waiver wire, there's no reason to buy-out anyone on this team - with the exception of players with a NMC.

Full stop.

There's no reason for the Leafs to take any type of long-term cap hit to dispose of Blake, Bell, Raycroft, Kubina (take your pick of 90% of the roster) when those players can be placed on waivers (obviously, a trade would be the preferred method but if a guy won't waive his NTC, the waiver wire it is.)

Here's how the waiver wire works:

If another club claims a player off the waiver wire, that team takes on 100% of the salary and 100% of the cap hit. The Leafs are free and clear of the player, the salary and the cap implications.

If the player goes unclaimed, the Leafs then have two options:

1. Pay the player their salary to play in the AHL (or ECHL if it's Raycroft).

Under this option, the Leafs do have to pay their salary, but if the player is playing in the minors, the team takes zero cap hit (zip; nada; zilch). MLSE has deep deep pockets so I don't think this will be too much of a problem.

2. The Leafs can also recall an unclaimed waived player with the rather large caveat that the player has to clear waivers a second time (re-entry waivers). Under this option, if the player is claimed on re-entry by another team, the Leafs are on the hook for 50% of their salary (and 50% of the cap hit) for the duration of that player's contract. This is what Pittsburgh did with Recchi (now with Atlanta) and Chicago did with Samsonov (now with Carolina).

So waivers or buy-outs?

Let's take Raycroft as an example.

If the Leafs buy-out his contract, under the CBA the Leafs must pay Rayzor 2/3rds of his remaining contract, paid out over twice the remaining length of the deal.

Raycroft, with one year remaining on a $2 million contract (nice work JFJ!), would be paid $2MM x.66 /2 or $660,000 for two years with the Leafs carrying that $660K cap hit for two seasons as well.

Factor in a replacement back-up goaltenders salary - say Pogge at $638 - and the Leafs are stuck with a cap hit of $1.3M for back-up goaltending.

The buy-out creates $700K in cap space.

If they waive Raycroft, the Leafs pay $638K for back-up goaltending and take a cap hit of $638K for back-up goaltending.

The waiver wire creates $1.36 million in cap space.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

***Update***

As I was on my way to a lunch meeting it struck me that buy-outs vs. waivers might just be the key to understanding this franchise.

Consider: a buy-out hinders the Leafs by saddling the team with a multi-year cap hit, but it ultimately saves MLSE money and funnels more dollars towards their bottom line.

A waived player makes things better for the Leafs but costs MLSE a lot more dough.

Based on that very basic and rather simplistic viewpoint, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that if this club waives players, MLSE may not be the greedy, bottom-line first franchise as so many detractors claim.

Conversely, if they pursue buy-outs instead of waivers, it certainly suggests that the bottom line comes before doing whatever it takes to help the Leafs win.

Further evidence that Don Cherry is a moron

Tonight on Coach's Corner (11/04/07) the man that picked Brian Bochenski to beat Crosby and Ovechkin as rookie of the year said Raycroft ran into trouble this year because he played too many games. It's fatigue he says.

Uh huh.

Mr. Cherry, let's look at Raycroft's stats on a month by month basis:

October: 11 GP; 5-4-2; 3.09 GAA; .894 SV%
November: 10 GP; 6-4-0; 2.50 GAA; .904 SV%
December: 10 GP; 4-4-2; 3.20 GAA; .867 SV%
January: 12 GP; 8-4-0; 2.500 GAA; .901 SV%
February: 12 GP; 5-4-3; 2.917 GAA; .854 SV%
March: 13 GP; 8-3-2; 2.69 GAA; .909 SV%
April: 4 GP; 1-2-0; 3.50 GAA; .829 SV%

So when exactly did the fatigue kick in?

Actually, looking closer at the numbers, Cherry might be on to something - maybe Raycroft is best utilized by only being allowed to play every other month. I'd be happy with his numbers for November, January, March. The Leafs just need to find a keeper who can play October, December, February and April...

Delusions of Mediocrity?

Raycroft's stats (based on goalies who played 18+ games):
42nd best Save Percentage
37th best Goals Against Average
58th in Goals Against (Dead Last - no goalie gave up more goals this year)
29th in shut-outs
9th most wins (that's good!)
6th most losses (that's bad.)
19th in Win Percentage

In the shoot-out, where the Leaf shooters fell in-line with the league average, Raycroft's .594 save percentage puts him 26th out of 33 goalies who faced 15 shots or more.

Failed to make the playoffs
Pulled nine times - including in the biggest game of the year in front of the largest TV audience in HNIC's history

What's Raycroft's take?

"I had 37 wins this year. Being in this city, there's going to be a lot analyzed ... the bottom line is that there's not many people who play goalie in the National Hockey League and get 37 wins a year, top 10 in the league. I'm happy with that. I would have like to have had 16 more in the playoffs but it is what it is," he said.

"The improvement was good. I look forward to building on this year. There were a lot of questions coming in about whether I could even play any more. I think I've answered those questions. I just look forward to having an even better year next year."

Wow.

With that level of analysis and introspection, I look forward to other Q&As with Andrew.

On James Frey?
There's a guy that can hold his head up. There aren't that many guys who write a book and get it published and few who do sell as many as he did. He even got to go on Oprah. That's pretty cool.

On Enron?
In a money obsessed culture like ours there's bound to be some analysis, but those guys built up one of the largest energy firms in the world with record revenues. They should be pretty happy with that...

Coach Mo told him to be ready to start 65 games next year. That's going to be quite a load for Raycroft, I hope the additional bus travel in the ECHL doesn't wear him out...

Lost Weekend

Thoughts on this weekend's games...

1. Found it fascinating that the Penguins consistently dumped the puck in on the Leafs left D and sent two forwards in hard after it all night. Three of the four Penguins goals were generated out of that part of the ice, including the game tying marker.

2. Is there any one that likes Glenn Healy's broadcast work? Anyone...

3. I'm not casting blame here - hockey is a team sport - but I bet Raycroft would love to have another crack at the Penguins tying goal (he seems so slow laterally, he was still hugging the right post when the puck was hitting the net). Same goes for goals one and three against the Rangers. That was some ugly stuff.

4. With Cola banged up in New York (he didn't even come out of the room for the third period) and Perrault nailed to the bench against Pittsburgh, that Bell trade is looking just stellar.

5. Enough with the man games lost to injury meme. Two players: Wozniewski (out for 59 games) and Mike Peca (out for 43 and counting) make up for nearly a third of the team's total...the reason the Leafs are unlikely to make the post-season has very little to do with injuries and everything to do with their inability to keep the puck out of the net (and to hold onto a lead - Leafs are 22nd in the NHL when leading after 2)

6. I can't believe I watched the Rangers game until the Rags posted their seventh goal...which also cost me this week in my rotisserie hockey pool, the guy I was up against had Jagr and Nylander. We were tied until the puck bulged the twine.

7. Leafs tragic number is 3.5 (SOL and OT kinda messes up the math here - I guess I should it round up to four?) Any combination of points lost by the Leafs and points gained by Montreal that adds up to 3.5 (4?) means it’s all over for Mats and Co.

Ten Things I've been thinking about lately...

10. I realize Maurice has more hockey knowledge in just one of those deep dark circles under his eyes than I will ever hope to acquire no matter how much hockey I watch, but as the Leafs game went up like a four alarm blaze in Tonawanda, why didn't Maurice call a time-out or swap out Raycroft? Anything to stop the bleeding. Instead, wave after wave of Sabres came at them, the Leafs got gut-punch crushed and Raycroft will have to be back between the pipes in 20 or so hours (watch that glove-hand Andy, it's a bitch).

9. I'm a little confused - the Leafs were supposed to be life and death to make the playoffs. The experts said it; the coach said it; many fans said it and the GM may have even said it. So what's with the injury story angle? If the Leafs were healthy, are we to believe they'd be protecting these leads, winning in shoot-outs, not choking? Only Peca's hurt at the moment and this team still looks like a 10 spot club or worse...

8. When discussing the Perrault deal, why do so many fans think Bell would have been lost to waivers? At the Trade deadline, the Leafs had the flexibility to acquire one player without having to pass anyone through waivers. Once the trade deadline passes, there is no roster limit (CBA 16.4a). If Bell was going to be lost to waivers (and there's no knowing if this is true or not) the earliest he would have been lost is October 2007. Seven months after the trade deadline. FWIW, Bell has more points since the trade than Perrault, although he's getting about twice the ice-time of Perrault (and what's up with #94 logging 6 to 10 minutes/game?)

7. It seems common knowledge that Ferguson will be fired if the Leafs miss the playoffs again this year (here, here, hell - everywhere) but I've never found a source for this. Does any one have a citation on this? A quote from Peddie, Tannenbaum or anyone at MLSE? I have a bad feeling Ferguson has at least another year left in him. I guess MLSE wants at least one more trade deadline to pass so they can sit on their hands.

6. The polarizing effect of Raycroft. He's not as good as the wins total crowd would have you believe (check out his total losses, his win percentage and the shoot-out wins compared to Eddie and Cujo) and on the other hand he's not as dreadful as some of the stats might suggest (his ES SV% is solid; his PK SV% is lower than a Sens fan's self-esteem each June.) Would he be such a divisive figure if he wasn't a JFJ acquisition and if the price paid for him wasn't so high?

5. If the Refs really had a bias against the Leafs, wouldn't they be the most penalized team in the league, not the 7th most. Sometimes refs (Hello Kerry Fraser!) are just the suck, no matter what colour jersey the teams happen to be wearing. And how on earth did Cola get away with that trip in the Jersey game if the zebras have it in for the Blue and White?

4. I always presumed the Leafs were bottom of the barrel at the shoot-out because of their shooters. Surprisingly, the shooters are decidedly average - ranked 16th overall - scoring at just a fraction less than the league average (a 0.8% difference). Raycroft's sv% on the shoot-out, on the other hand, is dipping towards the Caps' win percentage...

3. Why do fans bring up dumb things Leafs may have done when discussing the current rash of meat head plays in the NHL? What do any of Domi's past transgressions (Samuelson, Niedermayer, Arvedson, marital infidelity) have to do with what I might think of as appropriate discipline for Neil, Janssen, Simon and Tootoo?

2. What does this team really need in the off-season? Let me clarify that, what minor tinkering will MLSE undertake as part of their master plan? It's clear they can generate sufficient offence off the back-end (and there's such little flex with those contracts it seems the top 6 spots are locked down) but the club can't keep the puck out of their own net. Maybe a solid back-up goalie, someone that can eat PK minutes and a new special teams coach behind the bench to take a fresh approach to a moribund pk.

1. How many "must win" games can a team lose before the term must-win has no currency? Seems to me, the Leafs have lost three of the last four must-win games, which of course means Saturday night's match-up against the Sabres at the ACC is a must-win game.

Shoot-out blues

...add another item to the list of bad stats that leaves me cold when I think of Raycroft holding the Leafs' single season win record: Raycroft's terrible record in the shoot-out. I'm not talking win/loss, I'm talking save percentage.

Raycroft has been beaten 13 times on 32 shots for a .594 sv%

That puts him 30th among goalies who've faced at least 10 shots and well below the league average of .678%

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Gotta wonder what Maurice is thinking when he picks his shooters.

Poni went 0 for 7 before Maurice looked elsewhere, Tucker was 1 for 5 before he was blanked against the Habs tonight (he's now a lumbering 1 for 6). Given how O'Neill and Steen buried the biscuit against NJ, you'd think Coach Maurice would go back to them...

Re-examining the Perrault deal

When the Perrault deal went down, I had two issues with it (discussed in detail here and here) in short:

1. It didn't address or fix any of the core needs of the club (PK, defensive play)
2. The opportunity cost was quite high (spare parts were dealt, the Leafs' problems remained) and never seemed to be part of the equation for MLSE or anyone else evaluating the deal

Well, seven games into the Perrault era, add two more issues to the list:

1. The supposed depth on the Leafs D is gone when they need it most
2. The Leafs knowingly traded Bell and a 2nd rounder for damaged goods

If there's one-lesson to be learned from last year's playoffs it's that there's no such thing as having too many D (c.f. Buffalo).

Now with injuries to Kaberle, Colaiacovo and Hal Gill (who did return to the game after getting stitched up) the Leafs had to rush back an injured Pavel Kubina and dress a healthy Wade Belak. McCabe logged 29 minutes against the Caps and will have to be good to go again Saturday night. I'd much rather have Bell available to fill-in on the blueline right now, but instead we have Perrault and his bum shoulder...

So to recap, that's our suddenly much needed depth on D and a second round pick for this:

Game	G	A	+/-	Total TOI	PP TOI	PK TOI	FO%
at Washington	0	0	-1	7:47	00:38	00:00	100%
Tampa Bay	0	0	0	6:24	00:58	00:00	37.5%
Ottawa	-	-	---	----	Scratched	----	---
at Ottawa	0	0	0	10:53	2:14	00:00	50%
Washington	1	0	+1	6:51	00:45	00:00	75%
Buffalo	0	0	0	13:10	2:53	00:00	56.2%
at New Jersey	0*	0	-1	13:38	4:16	00:00	87.5%

Dressed for six out of seven games, one goal, no assists, -1, avg. 09:47 ice time per game. Wow. Nice work JFJ!

Raycroft, Maurice and Aubin

Given that Raycroft seems to struggle when he's tired/ plays too much hockey and given that the Washington match-up was allegedly the easier of the two back-to-back games this weekend, was anyone else surprised that Maurice gave Raycroft the start?

Wouldn't it have made more sense for Aubin to face the Caps and keep Raycroft fresh for the Habs?

Instead, Raycroft has to play back-to-back after another erratic start (goal #1 was horrible and I'm sure he'd like a mulligan on #4) in a big, pressure filled game in a city where his last start resulted in a .688 sv% and an early trip to the showers.

This speaks to a larger question: if Maurice and MLSE have such little faith in Aubin (9 starts out of 71 this season) why did the team decide to move Telly and knowing Raycroft breaks down under a heavy workload, why haven't they found an adequate back-up to help spell-off Raycroft?

On the IR

Posting may get a bit more sparse around here and the typos might become even more prevalent as I suffered an undisclosed upper body injury last night.

Or in more simple terms: I busted my clavicle.

Caught a rut near the crease on the forecheck and kissed the end boards hard. I knew something was busted as soon as I got up and headed for the bench...the right side of my chest felt like an accordion, swinging and swaying as I skated off the ice. Six to eight weeks in a sling (that's 2 months of typing one-handed) and bi-weekly visits to the fracture clinic.



Raycrot's Record
A big topic in Leaf Land is Raycroft's chance to break the single season wins record, currently held by Ed "billion dollar" Belfour.

Eddie posted 37 wins in 62 matches back in 2002-03, breaking Cujo's mark of 36 wins in 63 games set in 1999-00. The Star, Sun and CP have all filed on this in the past few days.

I really hope Raycroft smashes the record as the Leafs need every win they can get (seems like this team has been in a must-win situation since Christmas). That said, I find it very interesting that my first reaction to this news is to dismiss it by looking at the math.

If Raycroft sets a new Leaf record, and given how erratic his play has been this season it's by no means a certainty, the number of games he's played certainly needs to be factored in. With 12 games left to go, I imagine Raycroft will break Eddie's record around the 68 or 69 game mark. That's nearly 10% more hockey than Eddie needed to set the record.

Also to be considered: three (or four?) of Raycroft's wins have come in the shoot-out, which didn't exist when Cujo and Belfour set their respective records.

So, Raycroft may set the record, but he'll do it with a poorer winning percentage and the added assistance of the shoot-out...

Sundin and Sittler

With his next goal, Sundin will match Darryl Sittler's record of 388 goals as a Leaf. I think this is just fantastic news and I really hope the mighty Swede breaks the record in Montreal on Saturday night. Nothing like bagging the historic goal in a big game between such storied rivals in such a great hockey town.

Compare and Contrast

Unlike Raycroft's record, my first reaction to Sundin's news wasn't to question the math (Sittler played 844 games for the Leafs, by Saturday night Sundin will have played 850). Nor did I immediately think about how the introduction of regular season overtime in 1983-84, two years after Sittler left the Leafs, might have affected Sundin's stats.

Why the different reactions?

I think first and foremost it's because Raycrofts other stats, which I would argue are more indicative of a goalie's play, are terrible: his save percentage and goals against are among the worst in the league. Sundin, meanwhile, has been one of the most consistent players in the NHL during his career.

Secondly, there's a stink of PR desperation to the media coverage surrounding Raycroft and the potential record - especially the piece by Jody Vance. Ugh.

And finally, and perhaps not fairly, I can't help but wonder where this team might be had they received a higher calibre of goaltending. They certainly wouldn't be in 9th place, having to play desperate hockey each and every night. Raycroft has been nothing if inconsistent this year, which has really hurt the club, so it's rather ironic that such inconsistent play may result with his name in the record books.

Or as A.J. Liebling so eloquently said, "I think it's immoral for a man without talent to get too far."

It's the PK Stupid

Three somewhat related thoughts about the Leafs...

1. David Johnson over at Hockey Analysis has a must read post suggesting that the Leafs really aren't that bad a team, that in fact it's shoddy goaltending that's hurting this club. He correctly points out that the Leafs much maligned D (oh, I've heaped my share text their way - guilty as charged) has done a great job limiting shots (8th overall in the NHL - same as the Devils). On the other side of the blue line, the Leafs are top 10 in scoring.

2. Further to Johnson's post, I'd love to know how much of the Leafs penalty killing woes are attributable to the poor goaltending. As the sporting cliche goes, your goalie is the most important penalty killer. The Leafs are 26th in the PK and 27th in SHG. When you consider they've taken the 7th most penalties in the league, no good can come from this.

3. With the Leafs woes between the pipes and on the PK, the Perrault deal appears curious at best and a total waste of resources at worst.

Perrault played 13 minutes in his first two games, just six minutes against Washington and only 10 against the Sens. (Considering the Leafs had 8 PPs, why is it this face-off specialist only saw about two minutes on the ice with the extra man?)

MLSE coughed up some nice defensive depth in Brendan Bell (the 2003 CHL defenceman of the year and CHL first-team all-star) and a second round pick in a great draft year (2008) for a guy who's logging about 10 minutes a night who doesn't kill penalties and as far as I know can't play net. I'm ok with the sacrificing those two resources, but when you examine the return and when you look at what this club still needs, the opportunity cost is staggering.

SELL!

When the Leafs resume play on January 27th there will be exactly one month until the NHL trade deadline.

That’s one month for the Leafs to figure out if they’re buyers, sellers or if once more they’re going to make a series of useless, lateral moves.

The Leafs may be tied for the 8th and final playoff spot, but they’ve also played more games than their competition. If you look at winning percentage, the Leafs currently sit 11th in the East (and 22nd overall in the NHL – way to go MLSE!)

1. Buffalo .714
2. New Jersey .656
3. Atlanta .620
4. Montreal .602
5. Ottawa .580
6. Carolina .560
7. Pittsburgh .543
8. Tampa Bay .540

9. Boston .522
10. New York .521
11. Toronto .510
12. Washington .490

Presuming it will take 92+ points to qualify for the post-season, the Leafs will have to post at minimum 42 points in their next 33 games. That’s about a .636 winning percentage, something that I just don’t think this club is capable of, especially if you look at the Leafs’ performance so far this year.

Breaking the season to date into 10 game blocks, here’s how the Leafs have fared this year:

1 – 10 .550% (4-3-3)
11 – 20 .750 (7-2-1)
21-30 .250 (2-7-1)
31-40 .450 (4-5-1)
40-49 .555 (5-4-0)

While the Leafs did manage to real off a great streak in games 11 through 20, they followed that up with their worst play of the season. In fact, their best 30 game stretch produced just 13 wins and 31 points.

If the Leafs play at that pace (their best of the season) they’ll finish the year with about 83 points.

That’s nowhere good enough to qualify for the post season.

Considering their erratic play to date, a winning percentage of .636% just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Factor in long-term injuries to Wellwood (35 points in 31 games), Peca (without him the PK fell from a dismal 17th in the league to an atrocious 25th) and a fracture to Tucker’s foot and the odds of the Leafs stringing together a serious winning streak seem about as likely as Antropov threatening Doug Jarvis’ 964 game iron man record.

Looking at this, I have one-word for Mr. Ferguson – sell.

I’m not saying tank it.

I’m not saying the Leafs should play soft, play small, not compete.

I am saying it’s time for Ferguson to look at the assets that are on this club that have the potential to walk for nothing in the off-season, to look at the big picture of where this club needs to be to seriously challenge in the post-season and to move these assets now.

If Ferguson wants to be the GM of the big club, it’s time for him to show that he’s capable of doing something grander than Tellqvist for a fourth rounder or Perrot for a sixth and that he’s smarter than, oh say trading a top ranked goaltending prospect for a guy who can’t crack the top 30 in goals against or save percentage.*

Say goodbye to UFAs O'Neill, Tucker, Peca, Antropov, Green, Battaglia, Devereaux, re-stock the draft cupboard and let the kids play.

*For those of you keeping score out there, here’s how Raycroft stacks up against Legace, a guy the Leafs could have had for half the salary while keeping Rask in the fold:
Goals Against: Legace 2.69 18th; Raycroft 3.10 31st
Save Percentage: Legace .907% 21st; Raycroft .892% 36th
Nice work JFJ!

It's a Shame About Ray

Raycroft currently has a .901 save percentage, which puts him 27th in the NHL among goalies who've started 10 games or more.

Here's a look at Raycroft's save percentage on a game by game basis.
In the 12 games that he has posted a .900% save percentage or better the Leafs are 10-1-1.

In the 10 games Raycroft's been below .900, the Leafs are 1-7-2.

I know you can't win without putting the puck in the other teams net, but that's a pretty damning stat.

A note about the chart: The squiggly red line is the trend line, sadly pointing a bit south at the moment... Red bars are losses, blue bars are wins and dark blue bars are games decided by a shoot-out. The horizontal yellow marker is a Mendoza line of sorts - it marks the .900 save percentage point - a mark all starting goalies should be able to stay above. (There has to be a goalie we could name it after to give it a bit of a hockey flavour - any suggestions?)

Yawn

Harrison clears waivers, Telly goes to Phoenix for $600K in dead-weight salary that will be buried in the AHL and on MLSE’s books Tyson Nash and a fourth round pick. Yawn…

Leafs lose another boring game to Boston (I saw that Glenn Murray goal coming all the way down the Lakeshore…anyone else notice that almost every Bruins goal, if not all of them in the past two games went right over Raycroft’s catching hand?). I’m glad the black and gold are gone for a while. Nothing like watching a team trap all night. Yaaaawwwwwwnnnn. New NHL indeed.

Here’s a quick look at the Leafs at the 25 (26?) game point. (A blogger commenting on a seasonal milestone? Yawn…)

Coaching - I have two concerns with the coaching at this point:

1. The team is completely unable to adapt their game to play against passive defensive teams like the Bruins and Devils; and
2. Despite the huge number in the goals for column, this team cannot mount any type of comeback. The Leafs have not won a single game when trailing after the first, and have only managed to win one game when trailing after two periods.

That’s a shocking stat.

What happens if this club does make the playoffs? Can Maurice come up with a game plan to break the trap? Can this club adapt its game to win a seven game series? Can this club scratch and claw it’s way to a playoff win? Based on the year to date, I have my doubts.

The standings: Once a sign of confidence - the team was second in the North East and fourth in the Division - unfortunately last night’s win by the Habs, coupled with the Leafs consecutive losses to the Bruins, puts the Buds third in the ConferenceDivision and fifth in the DivisionConference.

The Sens will likely catch and pass the Leafs in the standings just before Christmas (and don’t say I didn’t warn you or give you enough advance notice – there will be lots of blather, spit, ink, mindless use of air time – you name it, that will come at that juncture). The Sens’ ascendance (boo!) will push the Leafs down to fourth in their ConferenceDivision and at least sixth in theirDivisionConference. Let the hand-wringing begin…

Scoring: Everyone and their cousin said the Leafs wouldn’t be able to score this year, yet they’re second in the East in scoring and third overall in the NHL. So much for the experts…Unfortunately, while the team maybe filling the other teams’ net, they’re not exactly shutting down the opposition. The Leafs have the third worst goals against in the East and the fifth worst overall in the NHL. With a back-end eating up nearly half the salary cap and long-term commitments to Kaberle, Kubina and McCabe, this is just not good enough.

What else isn’t good enough? The bloody NHL schedule.

The Leafs play Boston on December 7th and then again with a double-bill to bring in the New Year. In all of the Dave Nonis nonsense about the schedule, did anyone point out that it could be improved just by spreading out the games against certain teams? Does anyone want to see the Leafs and Bruins play six times in eight weeks? Insomniacs everywhere rejoice...

This is not a rivalry - it's a crime scene

I've written before about why the Leafs-Sens rivalry should just be left for dead. The fading flames of this alleged conflict are nothing more than media heat and noise.

Yes, Sens fans may love to beat the Leafs, but they'll need to get in line if they think there's anything unique about despising the Leafs, Leaf fans or even the city of Toronto. (I've lived in Ottawa and if you're going to pick a place to hate-on, the frozen city that fun forgot is a darn fine place to start.)

At the rate this "rivalry" is going I'm thinking the Leafs should adopt Washington Generals jerseys as a special look for games against the Sens (although judging by the number of people in pink leafs cowboy hats and assorted paraphernalia at the ACC during the Rangers game, those 4th jerseys would likely sell pretty well).



The Leafs are already down in this year's season series 3-1, haven't been close in their three losses and have been outscored 17 to 9 (that total is as of 2:55 of the third period, it could be 20-9 by the time I get this posted).

Last year, the Leafs went 1-7 against the Sens and were outscored 41-19.

There's a reason the papers and airwaves of full of blather about Kilger's spear, McGratton's antics and the Tucker-Eaves match-up (The Hesitant Yob vs. Sideshow Bob) - it's because the game on the ice is so unbalanced it's the least engaging and least interesting thing between these two clubs.

I'll save my energy for Saturday night and the Habs. At least there's a team the Leafs might be able to compete against in a city that actually matters.

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This isn't a knock against Spezza or Corvo (especially not Corvo, I've got him in my pool and am damn happy with his four helpers tonight) but on that sixth Ottawa goal how on earth can anyone be awarded an assist? Spezza blasts a shot into McCabe's shins, the puck bounces at least six feet away and hits Heatley in the chest. Heatley swats at the puck with his arm, it hits the ice and then he buries the shot. Two players get assists for that? Absurd.

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Is there a goalie equivalent to the Mendoza line? With tonight's loss Raycroft's stats are looking more Boston-bust than Rookie of the year. I'm no mathematician but giving up 23 goals in the last five games puts his GAA up to about 3.2 and his save percentage down to about .892

Positively Belfour-esque.
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Wonder if the Leafs three game losing skid will put an end to the ridiculous notion that JFJ should get an extension to his existing deal. With Kubina on the IR, Raycroft coughing up a five-spot with each start, and the Leafs specialty teams struggling there's not a whole lot of good news for Jr. Nor is there a lot to show for the mountains of cash and long-term commitments he gave out this off-season. Speaking of off-season moves, anyone else think McCabe has misinterpreted his non-movement clause thinking it refers to his on-ice activities.

In the Reds

I don't normally do the game notes/blog thing but I got a call around 5PM tonight from a friend asking if I was interested in going to the Leaf game, like he had to ask.

Here are some notes from the ACC:

When Andy Frost announced the game’s scratches, Antropov’s name got a big cheer.

The music selection at the ACC is worse than you might think. I don’t know that Cotton Eyed Joe made an appearance, but the majority of the music played was recorded before the births of Steen, Stajan and Ponikarovsky. I didn’t know that people still listened to Quiet Riot…I bet the guy next to me we’d hear Twisted Sister before the night was over. I lost. But it seemed like a safe bet at the time.

Both teams came out sluggish. The Leafs didn’t get their first shot on goal until the 13th minute mark and that was off a dump in.

Ponikarovsky’s goal was a thing of beauty. Too bad he couldn’t repeat in the shoot-out.

The Leafs looked absolutely dreadful in the second period. They were totally contained for whole shifts at a time, unable to contain the Rangers low-cycle and unable to clear the zone. The Rangers very successfully dumped the puck into the Leafs right corner and then flooded the right wing wall. The Leafs coughed up the puck time after time after time. It was ugly.

Raycroft did not look sharp. Pucks were bouncing off him like superballs dropped from the top of the CN Tower. He was fighting the puck all night and if it weren’t for a few lucky bounces the Rangers could have buried the Leafs in the second, especially as Raycroft struggled to contain the puck and limit second chances.

Stajan can dangle. Made a great move up the middle in the 3rd. Who knew?

Maurice did his best to pair Belak with Kaberle, but the Rangers did a great job of isolating Belak and working the puck into his corner whenever big #3 took to the ice.

Brendan Bell did not look out of place - had a really nice solo rush in the third that he nearly converted.

The Leafs seemed reticent to shoot the puck tonight and were guilty of over-passing on a few occasions. I’m amazed they managed 38 shots on Lundqvist. It’s either a friendly finger keeping count or the Leafs should have had 50.

PruchaTyutin crushed Tucker. Tucker crushed Jagr. Nice stuff.

Whenever Raycroft left the crease to play the puck, a woman in my section would make a noise like she was going into labour (either that or she secretly using the call of the dying giraffe). Thank you miss, whoever you are, for giving voice to the anxiety that I thought was mine alone.

Marcel Hossa really low-bridged Poniarovsky with a very dangerous looking hit in the neutral zone. If Quinn was still coach (or if Lindy Ruff were behind the bench) this would be the lead news item until at least Tuesday.

The Leafs looked better as the game went on, dominating most of the third. With the exception of one shift in OT, the Rangers looked as though they were just waiting for the shoot-out.

The guy sitting behind me very loudly predicted what each player would do as they came in on the shoot-out. He fared a little worse than the leafs going 0 for six on his predictions. My favourite: his call that Shanahan would go “High cheese over the glove” on Raycroft. High cheese indeed.

I’ve never enjoyed the shoot-out on TV and I hate to admit it was a pretty thrilling thing to see live. That said, I still think it’s a lousy way to decide a game.