Good NBC program is on hiatus
Cam Charron
October 26 2012 11:57AM
Hm, an NBC property with a highly-dedicated, yet small, fan base didn't start up this fall as was expected. Instead, they're showing, well, who knows, because who watches NBC? How many people have that channel saved in their favourites or bother to record anything on that channel?
Nobody, that's who.
VIDEO - Watch Morgan Rielly's insane end-to-end goal from last night
Cam Charron
October 25 2012 06:05AM
Via Youtube user anton1987 comes a blurry video of Morgan "I Before E" Rielly's insane end-to-end goal against the Lethbridge Hurricanes last night.
Not sure if you've heard, but Rielly has put up some huge offensive numbers in the WHL this year, the fall after being taken No. 5 overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Jake Gardiner and the "Mikhail Grabovski Expectation"
Cam Charron
October 23 2012 10:23AM
Something different.
The chart after the jump will be something called "The Mikhail Grabovski expectation". It comes from a few days of sleuthing around every single Jake Gardiner statistic I could find, looking for some kind of lead, or some kind of reasonable explanation for why a plus-Corsi defenceman on a minus-possession team like the Leafs could be potentially expendable in a trade for Roberto Luongo.
Not that I dislike Gardiner, he's just a fascinating case, and I want to learn more about him.
CBA optimism, and are the Leafs well-positioned?
Cam Charron
October 22 2012 12:45PM
Let's talk conspiracy theory here. Or let's talk luck, or let's talk about my theory that Brian Burke is one of the few General Managers in hockey who acts with the future interests of the team in mind and not his own.
At the end of Pierre Gauthier's run in Montreal, he left the team with Rene Bourque and Tomas Kaberle, players on longer deals than the ones he traded. I don't know where Burke stands with MLSE, but with a change of ownership and NO PLAYOFFS IN X YEARS, I really do think it would be naive of us to think that Burke won't be carefully analyzed by his superiors going into this season.
Any move, any move, to get this team back into the playoffs, mortgaging the slim future of the Leafs for a better shot. I have no doubts that trading Jake Gardiner for Roberto Luongo would help the Leafs for the next couple of years. That would guarantee Burke a couple more years in Toronto at least. The problem is whether Gardiner and the first he's packaged with, may come out to generate more value in the end than the goaltender himself and harming the Leafs for the future. I do think Burke worries more about the team's future than his own, a desirable trait in a GM.
Toronto Marlies win 5-0, wayward hockey stick tries to eat Greg McKegg
Cam Charron
October 20 2012 08:20PM
The Toronto Marlies were the clearly dominant team through the only two periods that mattered in this game, but that doesn't mean that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the clearly dominant hockey club when stacked against the Montreal Canadiens.
This Hamilton Bulldogs team is really young. I saw five players for the Bulldogs play in the Canadian Hockey League at some point last year, including Patrick Holland, who was one of the Bulldogs' better players. The Marlies who played the best in this game, Greg Scott, Mike Kostka and Kenny Ryan, are for the most part lifetime AHLers.
That said, the Leafs-Marlies got some inspiring performances tonight, particularly from Jake Gardiner, and one from Leo Komarov, that ought to make the future Leafs roster mostly interesting.
