Pogge

Chris says:

If the question is how do the Leafs win more games, Pogge is not the answer.

It's indicative of the just how much the Leafs are panicing that they would even think of calling Pogge up to potentially have him start a game. From what I've heard he's at least another year away from being a legitimate goalie.

By even calling him up it says the Leafs are hoping that their number four guy on the depth chart has enough mad skills in his pocket to make up for his complete lack of experience in the NHL. I don't know, maybe he does. I keep hearing the guy being touted as the Leafs next big thing, but I haven't seen him in action so I can't seperate the hope from the hype.

Rather than being a wake up call it comes off as a desperation move. It shows that the Leafs have abandoned smart hockey in favour of throwing any and everything at the wall and praying that something sticks.

The only way having Pogge as a starter makes any sense is if you officially call the season and want to try and groom him for a starters position next year. Even then you've still got three other guys ahead of him.

With the kind of games Raycroft has been posting no other team is going to take him off our hands. No other squad is desperate enough, or foolish enough, to think that Raycroft will be their saviour on the ice. He's shaping up to be a backup goaltender, if that. What happened to this guy? Where did that rookie sensation vanish too?

Clemmensen isn't a starter. He's good enough to hold Brodeur's skates, but he's not the guy you give the nod to on a nightly basis.

Toskala. I like him where he is. I'm absolutely not against the idea of having Pogge be the backup man to Toskala right now. It'll blood him, give him experience and the Leafs aren't going to lose anything by trying because at this point the season has gone way beyond just 'circling the drain' anyway.

You can't even pin last night's loss on him. He was good enough to nail the door shut for over forty minutes of play, on a pretty splashy showing by the Sharks no less. But how the hell is he supposed to do his job when the Leafs are taking stupid penalities and leaving the team at a two man disadvantage? On a team icing Thornton, Marleau and Cheechoo that's just a recipe for disaster.

Last night's game in a nutshell? The Leafs played good solid hockey for a period and a half last night, then they got tired, and sloppy and let the Sharks waltz back and steal it all away. If we'd finished the game with the same intensity in which we'd started it, and still lost, I'd say 'game well played' and some times the other team is just the better team.

But we lost because we gave up. Looks like the fans aren't the only ones who can see the writing on the wall

Steve says:


Bringing Pogge up is not a desperation move. We're beyond desperation now. This season is in the crapper and everyone knows it now...
But bringing Pogge up is a slap in the face of Raycroft. It's PM's way of saying "you little bastard...how dare you play that way on my team. You will now sit and watch as this kid takes your job!"
When they showed us Raycroft sitting and watching the game, it looked as though he was half asleep...even when we had the lead! That pissed me off.

Even Sundin is showing his frustration. A nice shove of the official at the end of the game was like an exclamation mark about the way he is feeling these days. I wonder if he saw the Scotty Bowman interview on CBC where Scotty basically said that MLSE (or more specifically, Richard Peddie) turned him down at the beginning of the season.
How many cups has this guy won? and on how many different teams in how many different situations....and Peddie turns him down why? because we are only 3 weeks away from training camp?

Holy F**************************************************************************************************************************K!