Leafs 2010-11 depth and musings...

I too was one of those people who expected Kaberle to be traded… but only for a guy like Bobby Ryan, Dustin Brown, Wayne Simmonds, or Brad Richards.

If we could have acquired a player like one of those guys, do we have the depth on D to get by without Kaberle? Probably. As long as no one gets hurt.

Well everyone knows that never happens in the NHL.

We would have all been asking ourselves the same question. Who will replace him?

Who knows, maybe a guy like Luke will step up? I think we’ll see leaps and bounds from him this year. He has one of the crispest breakout passes I’ve ever seen, a ferocious body check, not to mention a great backhand on a shootout. The one time he Wilson used him was in his rookie pre-season and he scored the game winner against St. Louis. Think about it Ron. I know you're reading this.

Though the leafs are unbalanced I think there are some spots open which is nice as it will encourage some competition and guys who were on the team last year aren’t guaranteed a spot this year which is good (see Finger, Mitchell.. even Hanson). Don’t get me wrong Hanson has potential, but he’s got to get on the scoreboard a lot more and use that big body of his.

I figure we need to sign 1-2 forwards still. A LW and a C, but what are available as UFA's are not likely what we need unless Gretz, Mario and Sakic decide to lace em up one more time.

Our forward corps is more than just Kessel like everyone still says. Give it up people, those good for nothings are gone. We have new blood. It's gonna be different.

Versteeg will be given room to blossom into the 1-2 liner he’s always been destined to be. I am eager to see what Kadri, Bozak, Kulemin, and Grabovski can do. I think they have speed and soft hands and big d-men to protect them if needed. Those are six top 6 guys in my opinion.

Next in line.. Armstrong, Caputi, Sjostrom, Mueller, D’Amigo, Hanson, Orr… a decent pack of 7 guys battling for the 3rd-4th lines. D’Amigo perhaps as a surprise similar to O’Reilly with Colorado last season?

Even Irwin had good numbers for NCAA, comparable to Blake Wheeler’s, but I see him in the Marlies to start, same with Brown, Rosehill and Mitchell

team kick ass

Team Canada is set to announce its roster for the 2010 Winter Olympics on December 31st. Final rosters don't have to be submitted until February 13th, so in the event of an injury or God knows what, changes can be made.

Here’s what I think the team should look like…

Nash Crosby Iginla
Marleau Thornton Heatley
Stamkos Getzlaf Staal
Carter Richards Toews

St.Louis Sharp Roy


Out: Perry, Lecavalier, Spezza, Smyth, Tavares, Morrow, Penner, Cammalleri, Doan, Horton, Fisher, Briere, Gagne, Perron, J Staal (damn this could be a good team too eh?)


Backend
Pronger Niedermayer
Boyle Bouwmeester
Keith Seabrook
Weber Doughty

Out: Green, Phaneuf, Reghere, White, Campbell, Barker, Beauchemin, Marc Staal, Letang

Goal
Brodeur… 2.05GAA, .925 Sv% best season out of the big 3.
Luongo 2.56GAA, .910 sv%
Fleury 2.54 GAA .903 sv%

What do you think?

simple math.

Current record 5-11-7. So the Leafs have 17 points in 23 games. 59 games to go. 118 points available. Our chances of making the playoffs are about 1.3% last I heard. But we still need about 78 points of 118 to get to 95 points and a reasonable chance at going to the show. Meaning we need a winning percentage of about .661. The way I see it, if we win one game, then lose 2 in overtime for the rest of the season we can get there! I've figured out a way we can lose more games than win and still make the playoffs. If we go 24-5-30, we'll have basically won only 29 games, and lost 53 but we'll end up with a final record of 29-16-37 = 95 points. PLAYOFFS. and of course STANLEY CUP.

Hagman, better than Tanguay.

Leaf fans have something to be happy about in Niklas Hagman. At 3 million there aren't a lot of wingers who I like as much as him. Compare him to a free agent like Alex Tanguay (2.5 million) for example who all sorts of Leaf fans wanted in this year who has a similiar number of points, but only 4 goals to go with 11 assists. On the other side Hagman has 11 goals and 4 assists... so if I had to choose I would take Hagman!