Toronto: Finishing 2010

Well back in October I outlined how the Toronto Maple Leafs...

Oh, Phil Kessel just scored on a power play against San Jose.. 2-2 game in the second now. lolololol Kessel is awesome.

Anyways, at the beginning of the year I praised Brian Burke for improving the Leafs' roster. He added Francois Beauchemin, Mike Komisarek, Garnet Exelby, Phil Kessel, Wayne Primeau, Rickard Wallin, Colton Orr and goalie, Jonas Gustavsson.

After those acquisitions I thought that we would have a good enough team to contend for one one the last playoff spots in the East. It's hard to blame me though seeing as we had young promising players like Stajan, Ian White, Kulemin, Schenn and Ponikarovski. Not to be forgotten are the veterans which include(d) the likes of Tomas Kaberle, Mayers, Jason Blake and Hagman.

I said that I thought our biggest weakness would be our goalkeeping and I was not wrong. Although Gustavsson is our goalie of the future, he still is adjusting to life in the NHL. So far he has played well for a first year player, but certainly not good enough to carry a team. On the other hand, I was hoping that Vesa Toskala would be able to rebound of his injuries plagued '09 season. This was certainly, not the case though.

Well as February rolled around, the Leafs looked awful. Toskala was having trouble stopping beach balls, Wallin still hadn't scored a goal, Kessel was slumping, Komisarek was injured, Grabovski was injured and it looked like the Boston Bruins would end up with the first or second overall pick in the NHL entry draft.

Then out of nowhere Brian Burke made my head explode. I wake up around 10am on Sunday morning to open my Facebook. I happen to see the status update of a good friend that said:

"omg peace Toskala"

I sat there and was like... hmmm, maybe they they put him on waivers and Joey MacDonald will be our backup from now on. Then I scrolled down the page to see someone else's post that read:

"Phaneuf and Giguere not bad"

Naturally I concluded that Calgary and Anaheim had made some sort of three team blockbuster so I decided to check it out.

What happened next blew my mind.

I opened nhl.com to see the headline confirming that Burke had made a trade with Phaneuf, and a trade with Anaheim.

I proceeded to jizz in my pants.

Dion Pheneuf, Fredrik Sjostrom and Keith Aulie had been traded to the Leafs for Jamal Mayers, Niklas Hagman as well as Matt Stajan and Ian White (two of my favourite Leafs for some time.) In fact I had envisioned Stajan to become the captain of the Leafs one day.

Then, I saw we had finally gotten Jean-Sebastian Giguere from the Ducks for Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake. Although it wasn't anything personal with Blake and Toskala I was ecstatic to see them gone. If my memory serves me, I believe they combined for about $7 million dollars, 11 goals and a 3.88 GAA. Not exactly worth the bucks am I right?

So now my team looked something like this:


** - Often healthy scratches or splitting time with Marlies
*** - Injured


P. Kessel
T. Bozak**
M. Grabovski***
W. Primeau***
R. Wallin
L. Stempniak
C. Orr
N. Kulemin
F. Sjostrom
A. Ponikarovsky
J. Rosehill**
J. Mitchell
C. Hanson**
V. Stalberg**

F. Beauchemin
D. Phaneuf
T. Kaberle
L. Schenn
M. Van Ryn***
J. Finger**
C. Gunarsson**
G. Exelby

J. Giguere
J. Gustavsson


Missing young players who had split time between the Marlies and the Leafs last year are:


Jiri Tlusty (Traded to Carolina)
Robbie Earl (Traded to Minnesota)
Justin Pogge (Traded to Anaheim)
Kris Newbury (Signed with Detroit)


I predicted that Toskala would be traded and Nazem Kadri would be debuting around the All-Star break. Well, Toskala was traded last weekend, and Kadri made his NHL debut in the Leafs' loss tonight (3-2.)

Unfortunately this season has been pretty bad. It is however improving vastly, and makes me definitely excited for next year.

I'll be bold once again and just name the players who I don't believe will be around next year. Other than these players, I expect everyone else to wear the blue and white.


Ponikarovski (Traded at deadline to either Pittsburgh, Phoenix, or Colorado)
Stempniak (Traded at deadline to either Pittsburgh, Phoenix or Colorado)
Kaberle (Traded during summer to either Chicago, Los Angeles or Dallas)
Exelby (Traded at deadline to either Chicago or will simply not resign at the end of the year)
Finger (Traded at deadline to either Washington, Carolina, Florida or will be bought out at years end)


All in all, I like the direction that we're going in and I think that Burke has done a good job so far. I wouldn't be too surprised to see the likes of a Paul Kariya, Matthew Lombardi or Colby Armstrong in a Leafs uniform next year. To all of you who complained about trading for Giguere... I told you he was still pretty good.

Two shutouts in his first two games. One against New Jersey and the second against Ottawa which snapped the Sens' ten game winning streak. Tonight he let in three goals against the second best team in the league. He's definitely given our team a chance to win each time, against very tough opponents.