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Math is Ganging Up on the Toronto Maple Leafs

By Stephen Johns

20090401leafs.jpg
Photo by Miles Storey from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.


The Montreal Canadiens’ 4–1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks yesterday night mathematically eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs from postseason contention, thus assuring the Buds of a fourth consecutive playoff-less year. The Leafs haven’t been in a playoff game since Jeremy Roenick eliminated them in the 2004 Eastern Conference semi-finals. Not to belabour the point, but this is the longest such streak in franchise history.
At least this year’s non-appearance won’t come as a surprise to anyone. Indeed, before the season had even begun, new head coach Ron Wilson announced flat-out that the team wouldn’t be competing for the Stanley Cup, a refreshingly honest statement that kept people’s expectations in check (we Leaf fans need this every so often) and set Wilson apart from his overzealous predecessor Paul Maurice. The Leafs seemed committed to rebuilding, instead of merely paying it lip-service as in previous years; not resigning Mats Sundin, who’d been the face of the franchise for more than a decade, underscored this intention. “Tanking for John Tavares” (to borrow the former name of a message board thread at TMLfans.ca) looked to be well on track. And for the first time in years, we started feeling ambivalent whenever the Maple Leafs lost.
But then the Leafs, as they’ve become annoyingly adept at doing, started winning meaningless games. At the trade deadline, general manager Brian Burke turned Nik Antropov and Dominic Moore into a pair of second-round draft picks—but he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) swing the kinds of major deals we’d been envisioning. (These may yet occur: we’d be shocked if at least one of Pavel Kubina or Tomas Kaberle weren’t dealt following June’s NHL entry draft.) The Leafs appeared to be stuck between stations yet again, neither good enough to make a playoff run nor really bad enough to win the draft lottery. Yet having said that, while in previous years these late-season turnarounds was usually due to veterans suddenly playing up to their ability, this year it’s been more a matter of the team’s youngsters coming into their own and adjusting to Ron Wilson’s style of coaching. These are both positive developments moving forward. We’ll have a final post mortem once the regular season finishes next weekend. Until then, we plan on enjoying what’s left of the 2008/09 Maple Leafs—even if the scores officially don’t matter any longer.

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Comments

  • http://null dowlingm

    As an immigrant to Canada, I find the notion of tanking disgusting. In virtually any other sport the notion of not trying to win would not only be likely to involve the loss of prize money for every place above bottom, but liable to attract punishment from the League. The draft system encourages teams to essentially defraud their season ticket purchasers by arbitrarily writing off the season almost from week one in order to grab the latest “phenom”, behaviour the media positively encourages.

  • http://null Astin

    Didn’t Maurice say the team wouldn’t make the playoffs a couple seasons ago, only to be smacked down by management and ownership for his negative attitude? The following season is when he made claims about it being the best team he’s ever coached when they were little changed from the previous season. I thought it was widely assumed that he was just saying it because he’d be raked over the coals for his honesty the previous year.
    And ambivalence is the wrong word. I was disappointed every time the Leafs won a game, as were other fans. We knew from day 1 that the goal was draft picks, not just missing the playoffs again. Hell, there were times losses were cheered because it meant we were drawing closer to a decent lottery shot.

  • http://undefined Astin

    But if your team is inexperienced from day 1, and you know there is no chance they’ll make the playoffs, let alone make a run at the championship, then why hope for as much? There’s nothing worse in sports than a consistently mediocre team.
    I’m not saying they should tank, but when the positive you CAN look forward to is closer to the bottom of the league than the top, then you cheer for the achievable goal.

  • http://null chenyip

    Fans are missing the point. There strategy of Tanking for Tavares is flawed because it assumes, Tavares is the type of player fit for a Brian Burke type of team. And anyone who knows hockey, probably can draw the conclusion that he ain’t.
    Great player, great scorer and amazing hands. But a Brian Burke type player? Not entirely.
    I like the moves the Leafs had made thus far. Draft picks galore. I know we all wish we’d have a stockpile of first rounders, but lets be honest, there’s no-one on the Leaf’s roster that’s of first round caliber.
    Food For Thought: Mason was drafted in the 3rd round, Versteeg in the 5th round, Shea Weber in the 2nd round and while still in the 1st, Mike Green was drafted 29th overall. there are gems to be found. We’ll see how good Burke is at doing this.

  • http://null eller

    Think of not getting into the plaoffs as an omen. I love the Leafs to death but I’d rather not have a looted and burned down city over games won (or lost). I’d rather watch Montreal do that to themselves from afar.

  • http://null greatcop

    Holland and Lamoriello are the kings of finding the late-round gems.