In a horror movie when the car won't start you give it one last try

As expected, this has been a pretty dismal season for the Leafs and, given the paucity of talent on this club and the preponderance of injuries, it's been difficult to get a handle on the impact of Ron Wilson in his first year with the team.

Take the Leafs special teams (please).

With such little talent up front it's surprising that their PP is 12th overall. That's a pretty respectable showing when you consider they're running Kubina, Stempniak, Blake, Stajan, and Poni as PP1.

On the PK the Leafs have been dreadful. Earlier this season they were flirting with the lowest PK rate in the NHL in nearly 20 years. I suspect the poor showing on the PK had more to do with Toskala than it did with coaching, players or systems. Gerber has played all of eight games for the Leafs and in that time the club has been killing penalties at an 80.7% clip. It's a very small sample to be sure, but it's still a vast improvement over their 30th place showing at 75%. In fact, if they could maintain their new kill rate with Gerber between the pipes it would put them in 18th in the NHL.

One other, albeit random, improvement from the Leafs this year: the dreaded shootout. If the Leafs win their next shoot-out they'll be .500 in the gimmicky extra point contest under Coach Wilson (7-7). I don't think the Leafs have ever been .500 in the shootout since it's inception, unless you count the days when the club is 0-0.

* * *

It will be interesting to see what supplementary discipline, if any, the NHL takes against Martin Gerber for his outburst late in the Caps game. The NHL has a tendency to approach supplementary discipline with as much order and precision as Jackson Pollack going at a blank canvas. Gerber bumped an official and fired a puck in their direction after a questionable goal by Laich. Under rule 41, that's an automatic game misconduct:

41.1 Game Misconduct – Any player or goalkeeper who deliberately applies physical force in any manner against an official, in any manner attempts to injure an official, physically demeans, or deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation shall receive a game misconduct penalty.

What remains to be seen is that firing of the puck moves Gerber into automatic suspension territory as per rule 41.3

41.3 Automatic Suspension – Category III – Any player or goalkeeper who, by his actions, physically demeans an official or physically threatens an official by (but not limited to) throwing a stick or any other piece of equipment or object at or in the general direction of an official, shooting the puck at or in the general direction of an official, spitting at or in the general direction of an official, or who deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation shall be suspended for not less than three (3) games.

At this point in the year, there are certainly worse options than seeing Cujo get the start for two or three games. Maybe one of Reese, Healy or Potvin can come out of retirement serve as his back-up.

For every shot that hit his cheek he drew on a stitch mark (and I think he played with Brad Park)

Earlier this season when the Leafs were in a string of shoot-out games (losing most of them) I e-mailed Chemmy over at uber Leaf blog Pension Plan Puppets to see if we (ok, he) could find anything interesting from looking at three years of shoot-out data.

Was save percentage the key? Was there a shooting percentage at which teams found more success?

Our first cut at the data didn't produce much (who am I kidding, it was Chemmy's first cut, I just emailed him the idea and he crunched all the numbers).

Then I thought of that dusty old aphorism that you'll often hear tossed around by a colour guy during a hockey game, usually after a string of effective special teams play: if you add a team's powerplay and penalty killing rates together, successful teams have combined rates of 100% or better.

Or as the Toronto Star put it:

Adding penalty kill percentage and power play percentage gives you a number around 100. Teams whose total is greater than 100 are teams that are good on special teams, those under 100 are hurting in that category.

It was with that metric in mind that we took a second look at the data and found an interesting pattern.

Teams whose combined shooting and save percentage is around the 100% mark are hovering at .500 in the shoot-out. The higer a team's combined totals the more shoot-out wins they have; the lower their combined percentages, the fewer shoot-out wins.

Let's go to the blurry chart:

For the Leafs to start hitting the win column one of two things has to happen:

1. If Toskala continues to put up a save percentage in the .500s, the Leaf shooters are going to have to shoot at 60% or better;
2. If Toskala can get his save percentage up into the high .600s, the Leafs will only need to shoot at about 50%

The good news for the Leafs is they haven't been in many shoot out games lately...and as for any potential lost points, a top five pick at the 2009 draft would be a most welcome addition.

I think Nelson's going to die for sure

Look, I know the Sabres are pretty much out of the playoff hunt: three points back with two games to go and two teams to leap frog makes it a long-shot at best. I also know the game meant nothing to the Leafs.

But if I was cheering for Philadelphia, Boston or Carolina, I wouldn't be too happy with the Leafs sending out Williams, Kubina, and Pohl to finish off the shoot-out.

Just think about the anger Leafs Nation sent New Jersey's way for sitting Brodeur in the final game against the Islanders last year. At least Lou had the plausible excuse of resting his starter before the Playoffs.

Then again, the way Maurice has been running his bench I'm surprised he didn't reach all the way back to the first intermission and call on this crew to take on the Sabres in the shoot-out.

Ten Things I was thinking about...

...while the game was on (man the Bruins are a boring club).

10. Is there an easier punch line in Canadian sports media than the very tired, “plan the parade” that gets thrown around whenever the Leafs win a game? I know there’s a writer’s strike but can Mike Toth and and the brainless minions that fill my screen each night come up with something new. Please.

9. A.J. Liebling called it "‘on the other hand’ journalism" - that rare ability to sit on the fence or find fault with all courses of action. I think Damien Cox might be the true master of this school of thought. If the Leafs ever win the Cup and the series goes seven, half of this town’s media will file ledes about how the Leafs should have won it in five.

8. What are the odds that someone can write an article or a column about the Leafs without dropping 1967 or “40 years”. Seriously. We get it. It's been a loooooonnnnnngggggggg time.

7. Speaking of dry spells, the Leafs are hardly alone (not that this excuses any incompetence at MLSE) but here are some other clubs that are similar territory, look for these team names to be included alongside 1967 to provide some balance/context:

35+ Years Without a Cup
Buffalo Sabres
Boston Bruins
Chicago Blackhawks
Los Angeles Kings
St. Louis Blues
Vancouver Canucks
Washington Capitals

Soon to be in the 35+ Years club
Philadelphia (33 years and counting...)

20+ Years
New York Islanders
Winnipeg/Phoenix

15+ Years
Calgary
Edmonton
Montreal
Ottawa
Pittsburgh
San Jose

6. Think back to last February/March when the Leafs were in the final stretch battling for a final playoff spot. At that time, the Leafs said they were approaching those end of season games as though it were the playoffs. They then went on to play .500 hockey, putting up stinkers against Washington, the Islanders and others (well done boys!). Well, it may be a few months early, but that same metaphor has been yanked out by the club yet again. Here's my question: if the Leafs lose four out of seven will they be eliminated from the regular season?

5. Does it really take death to engineer a change at the top for the Leafs? First Ballard, then Stavro...does anyone know how old Peddie is? How’s his cholesterol? Is he in good health?

4. Did you know that Leaf fans are in charge of programming down at the CBC? It’s true. Every year, 26 members of Leafs nation are chosen in a secret ceremony on Mutual Street and each one is given the responsibility to program a single 7:30 Saturday night game for Hockey Night in Canada. It’s funny, you’d think national programming decisions would have to do with ratings and market size - Toronto is the fifth largest media market in North America after all and the Leafs are a wildly popular team - but you’d be wrong. We members of Leaf nation get to pick what all Canadian viewers have to watch on Saturday nights. Our fellow Canadians cannot turn away, they cannot seek programming elsewhere and they must complain to me about it because I’m a Leafs fan…this is how things work. We must not stop and think about it nor question it. It just is.

3. Do people really believe that Leafs Nation is a monoculture? Can a fan base this large, every single mouth-breathing one of us, all believe the exact same thing: the Leafs are going to win the Cup each and every year. Look, the only trait Leaf fans all share is delusion – (we do cheer for the Leafs after all), but we’re not all optimists, we’re not all incapable of holding down the shift-key when we’re pounding out exclamation marks (Leafs are gonna win the cup, baby!!!!!!!1), very few of us want the Leafs to turn things around this year, yet the media sure would have you believe we’re all of one voice and of one mind (and a rather damaged/limited mind at that).

2. For those of you who think boycotting the Leafs will solve everything. Sure it will. Now please put down your petition, while I walk away slowly.

1. As much as I want the Leafs to have a top 3 pick at the 2008 draft, I find it very hard to cheer against the Blue and White. I was (unexpectedly) thrilled when Steen potted the winner tonight against the Bruins (although if MLSE thinks this makes the team buyers at the deadline, I will seriously circulate a petition and call for a boycott on all Leafs goods).

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%

===

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...

A shout out on the shootout

The Leafs went 3-8 on the shootout last year and missed the playoffs by what, two points?

This year, the Leafs are 3-7 in shootout games and remain life and death to make the post-season.

That’s too many points left on the table for such a desperate club (and hopefully too clear of a pattern for even the brain trust at MLSE to miss).

Here’s a thought: since MLSE doesn’t seem to have the stones or the vision to give this team the overhaul it so desperately needs; since the core of the team couldn't make the post season last year; since pretty much the same team likely won't make the post-season this year; and since, for some unknown reason, that same not-good-enough core is scheduled to return for 2007-08 (nice work JFJ!) I think MLSE should aggressively target and acquire a shoot-out specialist.

What would one of Petteri Nummelin (six for six in the dreaded shootout); Mikko Koivu (eight for 13); Erik Christensen (five for eight) or the ever-deadly Jussi Jokinen (five for nine) cost the Leafs?

These aren’t the big names that get thrown around in trade talk hype or as prime off-season acquisitions, yet they’re helping to put those much-needed SO wins on the board for their respective teams.

At a collective 6-13 lifetime in the shoot-out, something certainly has to give.

Poor Alex Ponikarovsky is dead last in the NHL shoot-out this season (0 for 7) and yet Maurice keeps calling his name and sending him over the boards. Maybe Poni is dynamite in the shoot out in practice (although shooting against Raycroft who wouldn’t be?). Or maybe Maurice is playing the law of averages and figuring at 0 for 7 eventually Poni’s got to hit the back of the net.
It's not quite the re-model I'm holding out hope for, but if it enables the Leafs to be .500 in the shootout next year the club might be able to finish the season as high as 7th place in the East. Imagine that, MLSE gunning for something other than the 8th and final spot.

A Series of Compounding Errors

When the Leafs played Nashville a week or so ago, Joe Bowen (or one of the Leaf play by play guys) paraphrased Barry Trotz as saying "When teams, like the Leafs, are battling for their playoff lives little things tend to get magnified."

Think missed calls, bad penalties, weak goals - you know all the hallmarks of a typical Leaf game, streak, season, decade, forty-year drought (take your pick).

And so it comes to this...Sundin, inexplicably, gets a goal called back (nice work NHL. I know I ranted about this once before but would a timely explanation or some accountability be too much to ask? And wouldn't it have been the right call for Sportsnet to cite the Fraser call as the turning point of the game?); McCabe (after a horrible pinch) gets called for a very marginal hooking penalty (his stick was on and off that player faster than you could say "bad contract JFJ") and the Isles tie it up on the powerplay.

In OT, Sundin gets taken down like Steve Simmons on a Leaf fan discussion board and there's no call (hey NHL - it's a dive, a trip, or both - even the culprit Satan thought he was headed to the box).

And so it goes into the books as a shoot-out loss.

Oh, and here's more good news: the Isles now own the tie-breaker should they finish the season tied with the Leafs for 8th PPP has correctly pointed out that the Leafs still own the tiebreaker, so we've got that going for us.

My point isn't to bemoan the bad calls in one game (although that's always fun).

My point is this: it's time MLSE iced a team where non-calls and marginal penalties weren't the difference between life and death.

It's time MLSE set about icing a team where one blown call in February didn't loom over this club like some airborne toxic event.

I firmly believe that unless JFJ dramatically changes the composition of this team, I will spend all of next year with the Leafs stuck at .500, anxiously watching this same tightrope walk. Another season wasted on a team that's perpetually one stupid call away from being outside the playoffs once again.

I said weeks ago that I doubted this team has the stuff to make the post-season, never mind make it out of the first round.

But for those Leaf fans who are holding out hope for the playoffs, thinking this year's version of the Leafs might do some damage if they make the post-season dance, consider this: if the Leafs were in a four game series against the Isles, they'd be down 2-0.

Factor in: the recent 3-0 loss against the Bruins, the fact that this team holds a lead about as well as Ashley Simpson holds her liquor, that scintillating sub .500 home record and the fact that no team seeded lower than fifth has ever won the cup and I can't say I'm with you delusional Leaf fans optimists on this one.

And how bad is it that "making the playoffs" remains a stretch for this organization? Over half the freakin' league qualifies and yet the Leafs struggle to even attain that mediocre level of "success"

Sell.

Trade all the UFAs.

Play the kids and any prospects we get back.

Scout the hell out of all the pending UFAs and spend accordingly in the off-season.

From here on out, it shouldn't be about trying to hit that 8th spot, trying to get 2 more home dates for the pension fund, hoping Kerry Fraser isn't going to stick-it to the Leafs again.

Winning one round of the playoffs isn't what I'm after either.

Two rounds won't cut it.

A successful season for Leaf Nation should be winning the Cup. Nothing less.

Isn't it time MLSE started to think the same way?


Oh, and for the record: I hate the shoot-out. Even had the Leafs won, I still think it's an absolutely preposterous way to finish a game. If Bettman and his suits want to entertain the fans, get some TV coverage and have everyone talking at the water coolers he should have Raycroft fight DiPietro at Centre Ice, winner take all...I'm guessing that the Emery tilt will get more coverage than any of the shootout results that went down on the same night. ***UPDATE*** Deadspin, which I love even though they never post about hockey, has already posted highlights of the Emery fight, quickly generating 80+ comments...

Nice Shot Antro: Games Updated through Feb. 14

UPDATED WITH GAMES THROUGH FEB 14:

When you outshoot a team nearly 3:1, it's hard to lay blame on the losing team. That said, if anyone knows what Antropov was thinking in the shoot-out, I'd love to know. Who the hell goes five hole from the other side of the hash marks?

Here's how the crazy east looks with another one day after another ACC home ice loss in the books:

Winning Percentage: Projections for the Post-Season

Team	Win %	GR	Record to 92 Pts	Record to 95 Pts
1. BUFFALO	0.702	25	6-19-0	7-18-1
2. NEW JERSEY	0.667	25	8-17-0	9-15-1
3. PITTSBURGH	0.616	26	11-14-1	13-13-0
4. OTTAWA	0.595	24	11-12-1	13-11-1
5. ATLANTA	0.585	23	11-11-1	13-10-0
6. TAMPA BAY	0.569	24	13-11-0	14-9-1
7. CAROLINA	0.551	23	13-9-1	15-8-0
8. TORONTO	0.544	25	15-10-0	16-8-1
8. NY ISLANDERS	0.544	25	15-10-0	16-8-1
-----------	--	-	-------	------
9. MONTREAL	0.542	23	14-9-0	15-7-1
11. NY RANGERS	0.527	26	16-9-1	18-8-0
12. BOSTON	0.509	27	18-9-0	19-7-1
13. WASHINGTON	0.474	25	19-6	20-4-1
14. FLORIDA	0.466	23	18-4-1	20-3-0

Teams are sorted by winning percentage, not points. Teams have not been re-seeded by division standings. Philadelphia cannot make 92 or 95 points.

Math was done by hand (while coding with Blogger's awkward interface) so please let me know if there are any errors.

SOL

Make it 3-7 in shootouts for the Blue and White this year as they go down to the Bruins 3-2.

The Leaf shooters are now officially 4 for 24 on these game-deciding breakaway contests.

Boston went 2 for 2 in the irony column with Czerkawski opening the scoring and Boyes putting the Leafs on ice in the shootout.

Once again, I have to wonder why Quinn went with the Sundin, Tucker and Ponikarovsky trifecta. If I was at the craps table with Quinn holding the dice, I'd be wagering on the don't pass bet. I also have to wonder how a supposedly hungry team opens the game with 2 shots in the first 20 minutes. What did they think this was, a game 7 against New Jersey?

To date, here's how the Leafs have fared this season (and if anyone can fill me in on how to remove the three miles of blank space between this sentence and my table, I'd be really grateful.)

Player	Shots	Goals	Shooting %
Sundin	7	1	14.2%
Ponikarovsky	5	1	20%
Tucker	4	1	25%
Lindros	3	1	33.3%
Allison	3	0	0%
Wellwood	1	0	0%
O'Neill	1	0	0%

What the Hecht?

Seems to be a lot of chatter today about the Tucker-Hecht tumble from last night’s Leafs game. After the game, during the media scrum, Lindy Ruff pulled a page out of Pat Quinn’s playbook and called on the league to suspend and fine Tucker.

I can’t offer much of a comment on the "hit" as the game was only available on Leafs TV and I refuse to give the Leafs an additional $2.49 a month, so I didn’t see it. (I’m not a cheap guy, but when you consider that the Leafs achieved an instant savings of $26 million through the collective bargaining agreement and then thanked fans with a 5% ticket roll-back - those $37 nosebleeds are now just $35! - I just can’t bring myself to put another $20 or so in MLSE’s coffers.)

A quick search of youtube didn’t turn up the footage (although it did turn up the strangest Pixies homage I've ever seen and further evidence that Titanica Rules!).

The on-line footage at TSN (free registration required) looks like it was either shot by one of Zapruder’s grandchildren or it’s a special-ed project using plasticine and stop-time animation. Perhaps this lack of quality footage explains some of the questionable disciplinary decisions that get handed down by the NHL.

In the absence of the Hecht-Tucker evidence, I'll offer up three quick thoughts on the Leafs shootout loss:
1) The Leafs are 3-6 in shootout games – considering there are approximately 3 shooters each time out the Leafs are actaully about 3 for 27. That’s like Mike James on a bad run. Isn’t it time for Quinn and Co. to consider sending out some different shooters?
2) What’s with the slow starts? Grandma Moses was quick out of the gate compared to this year's Leafs.
3) The shootout may be the most exciting play in sports but it really sucks on the radio.