Thread: The puck drops tonight!

The other WAB'ers are probably scratching there heads and saying "...what?"

Leafs fans have hijacked this thread, and the leafs are a crappy team.

..Not to mention a bit of a circus. McCabe gives games away on a constant basis, the whole team lacks any drive or motivation to win, Tlusty took pictures of himself naked in front of a mirror and others of him touching tongues with another man. Our Goalies suck, we loose big all the time, our defence sucks. Our two new off season acquisitions Bell has been charged with impaired driving, and Blake announces he has Cancer...

Now there is talk that that Maurice has lost the lockeroom..

All this and its only a quarter of the way through the season!

But somethings never change...as crappy as the team can be..we still have the best fans!! Bleed blue and white forever!

Originally Posted by gunnut

Use McCabe for spot duties and primarily on power plays. It's very useful to have an offensively minded defenseman on the power play.

McCabe is taylor made for the powerplay with his slapshot and offensive prowess. I still remember his days in Vancouver. Looks like what Toronto needs is stay at home defencemen.

Originally Posted by Canmoore

The other WAB'ers are probably scratching there heads and saying "...what?"

Leafs fans have hijacked this thread, and the leafs are a crappy team.

..Not to mention a bit of a circus. McCabe gives games away on a constant basis, the whole team lacks any drive or motivation to win, Tlusty took pictures of himself naked in front of a mirror and others of him touching tongues with another man. Our Goalies suck, we loose big all the time, our defence sucks. Our two new off season acquisitions Bell has been charged with impaired driving, and Blake announces he has Cancer...

Now there is talk that that Maurice has lost the lockeroom..

All this and its only a quarter of the way through the season!

But somethings never change...as crappy as the team can be..we still have the best fans!! Bleed blue and white forever!

Maurice has lost the lockeroom, its the only explaination for why the teams not playing defencively like they need to. They are producing the points they just can't keep the goals against down to win the game.

Maurice is an incredible coach.. he is extremely "hockey smart", it is unfortunate that the team has become disenfranchised with him.

hehehe its soo hillarious how McCabe costs the leafs games LOL

It always happens at the worst possible time. If you want to give up a goal or two McCabe, go ahead and do that when we're up by 2-3. He just hands the puck to the opposition team and then falls down! They go on a breakaway and score

Its time to get rid of him. I love the guy, but he's doing us more damage than help.

Originally Posted by Canmoore

Maurice is an incredible coach.. he is extremely "hockey smart", it is unfortunate that the team has become disenfranchised with him.

We can't really blame him because Pat Quin had the leafs "high flying, body checking, smack talking, senator beating, entertaining, and media buzzing for all the right reasons" when he was the coach. We didn't make the playoffs one year with him, and he was fired. Good choice? We can debate because we never reached the finals with him leading us. Maurice is trying to change the whole system around, he's trying to make the game too boring. I can't even sit and watch the leafs anymore. I'm becoming a basketball fan and i'm ashamed. I used to love playin basketball but not watching. Now its vice versa Imagine what Pat Quin could've accomplished with the assets in players we have now, the SPEED alone is threatening.

Originally Posted by Canmoore

Maurice is an incredible coach.. he is extremely "hockey smart", it is unfortunate that the team has become disenfranchised with him.

It is indeed the coach's fault the team is doing so poorly. The coach is the one that needs to motivate the team to follow his lead and that means finding what it is that motivates the players. Maurice isn't doing that, it dosn't matter how successfull he's been in the past. Coaches like players need to produce results, if you look at the player stats you'll see Leafs players are out producing Ottawa players in reguards to points.

So that means its overall team strategy thats failing not the players and the coach is in charge of creating that overall strategy and convincing the players to follow it via whatever motivation that works. If tough talk isn't working in the dressing room something else needs to be applied. Even Quinn when he was in vancouver lost his influence over the players, partly due to too many duties as coach and manager of the team. He followed that up by hiring inadequate coaches to replace him.

As for McCabe coughing the puck up, thats a risk you take with an offensive minded defenceman. The other players are just as responcible for the loss as McCabe, they need to back each other up and play as a team.

There was talk a while back about the Leafs seeking the services of Scotty Bowman, unfortunately it seems to be just that, talk. Thats unfortunate because his record alone convinces players in reguards to his Philosophy.

Yet in spite of all their many faults yahoo,s like me after every rant and rage against this exercise in futility we call the Leafs,will always find they way to defend this very ineptness to the last tear filled beer at last call. ( have you noticed that with Leaf fans the cup is always half empty). Yes, it would seem Leaf fans have kind of taken over this thread but hey,is their any other team worthy! My god, sometimes I think that last TOW round I fired shook up my brains and common sense. Any way tonight Ottawa will probebly pound them and as I stated earlier,Ottawa 6-Toronto 0.

Yes the Pat Quinn era was very exciting for Toronto Fans, and humiliating for Ottawa fans

However, the team had no hope of getting better under Quinn. Toronto was a good team, but never good enough to win. Quinn and the management accepted the status quo, older veterans were replaced with old veterans. Yes these players were very good, and brought a lot of experience to the team. However, you cannot win cups by buying up good players. This is not the MLB, the New York Rangers are perhaps the best example of this.

I as a Leaf fan have wanted the leafs to just dump everything, and rebuild. Under Ferguson and Maurice, this is starting to happen. Yes, the team is not in full rebuild mode. But at least there is more of an effort to develop young talent than lean on old talent.

Problem is that in Toronto, there is a lot of pressure to perform. Maybe not to perform to the point of winning a cup, but there is pressure to perform to create an entertaining product.

Any person with even a lick of sport knowledge, knows that to rebuild a team means to go through some really rocky and terrible times. In Toronto, it seams no one wants to steep that low.

Maurice is an excellent coach, he is the type of coach you need when you want to develop young talent in rebuild mode. However, this does not fit in the Toronto style of team management..

In toronto mediocre players are treated like gods, so players can quickly become disenfranchised if they are told to work hard.

That is the problem, and its one of the reasons why I think that Toronto will not win a cup for a very very long time, the whole culture of the Toronto Maple Leafs must change for the team to bring a cup back home.

Ducks just waived goalie Bryzgalov. He was immediately claimed by Phoenix. I'm surprised the Leafs didn't try to trade for him or try to claim him with all the goaltending problems. Then again the Coyotes have had a lot of goaltending problems lately. Wayne is probably taking Tums by the bottle.

I saw that about Bryzgalov, he's one good goaltender. DOn't know what happened with that though. Tonight is also UFC, so i'm going to watch an hour or two (don't think I need 2 hours to see how badly the leafs lose) of the leafs-sens game and then I will switch to UFC fighting.

I agree, I really think Leafs are going to get embarrassed again tonight, but I won't mind eating my words if Leafs pull out a victory??!!! But hey, thats a longshot... Brother's bringing beers over, hopefully i'll be drunk dialing girls on the phone instead of paying attention to the leafs - sens score )

Hey heyy, Bryzgalov was "promised" by Brian Burke he'd trade him (he is a good goalender). I thought maybe because he wasn't doing good, but Anaheim coudlnt trade him and get something in return they say...

Leafs are up 1-0 end of 2nd period!!!! GO LEAFS GO! In haven't started drinking, but i'm afraid of the 3rd period... Oh well, Leaf fans will overtake any forum I tell ya!

Well I must admit the crow is a little over done but how can you explain a 3 nothing win against the best in the NHL. Go figure. See you all at the cup parade on Young St. in June........

Originally Posted by Exarecr

Well I must admit the crow is a little over done but how can you explain a 3 nothing win against the best in the NHL. Go figure. See you all at the cup parade on Young St. in June........

hahahah thats just a dream!! I loved how they outplayed Ottawa in every aspect )

I'm drunk and I LOVE IT!! Time for the drunk dial!