The Future

As we near the end of another season I feel the need to point out some highlights.

Starting with our future...Christian Hanson is already a welcome new addition, and Tyler Bozak will come in next training camp and prove all the drafters of past years wrong...I hope...

Poni had a great season even though we traded Antropov away. Grabovski broke the 20 goal mark in his rookie season. Kulemin has shown major progress towards his development to the North American ice surfaces. His forecheck has become a major part of his game. Hagman has scored 20 goals even though he missed 20 games due to injuries. I hope he can remain healthy next season as he is a major workhorse on every shift. Blake had a much improved season. He and Moore had some great chemistry before Burke traded Moore away...and how could he not...Moore was asking for the moon...nice try Dom...Burke is not JFJ. Blake looks like he is having fun on the Leafs team this year...and I think it has a lot to do with the change in the room. All the players who felt they had "the right" to be Leafs are gone. What's left are a group of youngsters competing for jobs with a few good vets in place for leadership. Toskala had a terrible season that he put down to injury...but with his surgery this summer, he should be 100% next season...let's hope for the best.

Whatever happens over the summer will surely make the Leafs even more dangerous next season. No one is expecting the Leafs to compete next season again. They are expected to continue the rebuild. And so they might...but I see the competitive fires burning in Burke...and I think we will pick up a FA and maybe even another big college guy before long (Gilroy?).

It's a no lose situation...which is great...Leaf games have been very entertaining for just that reason....and we'll get 82+ more next season.

Go Leafs!

Leafs beat Brodeur 6-5

Steve says:

Considering that this is the 2nd game in as many nights, I'd say this game was won due to the coaching of Wilson. He recognized that not all of our guys had legs for the whole night and he played the 4th line more than usual to make up for it and let his 1st line rest a bit more...the result was some great hard fore checking that led to a lot of scoring chances.I wasn't surprised that we looked a bit slow at times, but for the most part, Brodeur kept the Devils in this game. There were at least 5 times that Marty pulled out some magic tonight including one save where he snagged it with his blocker hand as the puck headed towards the goal line.Stajan and Moore had incredibly good games, and again, Schenn played a solid D game. The penalty at the end was bad luck. The reason we looked slow in the OT was because we were on the PK, and it took them a bit of time to get out of that mode.Great game...thanks for the win on my B-day boys!