Is Dave Nonis in denial? Does he REALLY think the
2012-13 Maple Leafs – a team that blew THAT lead against Boston – should be in
some way reunited?
Or is he just going with guys he has a history with,
knowing they can’t get the job done and will at the end of the day miss the
playoffs making it possible – POSSIBLE – the Leafs would have a shot to draft
Connor McDavid?
Interesting times for the Toronto Maple Leafs and
the General Manager.
First, let’s look at what has happened this off
season. The Leafs have lost David Bolland, Jay McClement, Mason Raymond and
Carl Gunnarsson.
They have added former Leafs Leo Komarov and Matt
Frattin and acquired defenceman Roman Polak and Stephane Robidas.
As Bugs Bunny once said, “this is being saved?”
“The compete level that we had two [seasons] ago, I think was at or near the top of the league,” Nonis said Tuesday. “We got more out of our players – the coaches did, the players themselves did in terms of pushing each other – than we did last year. No question about it.
“Some of the players that were here [for that run] will help us get that back. Or [in Robidas’s case] have a history of doing that. That was a focus for us.”
The Leafs still have $7 million to spend to reach
the cap.
I would suspect players like Stuart Percy (defence),
Josh Leivo (forward) and David Broll (forward) will be given every opportunity
to make the jump from the American Hockey League to the NHL next season.
They won’t cost a bunch and will be motivated to
prove they deserve to be in the NHL.
It is also going to mean more playing time on the
blueline for the likes of Jake Gardiner and Morgan Rielly.
But does Nonis REALY believe the core group of
players – a group that was behind a collapse against the Bruins in the May 2013
playoff game and last year’s late collapse as well – can finally turn it around
this season?
It’s hard to argue with what James Mirtle of the
Globe and Mail wrote this week, looking back at the 2012-13 team:
What is rarely mentioned is that that group became progressively worse as that lockout-shortened half season went along, getting outplayed and hemmed in its own zone more and more as the months wore on and the system issues sunk in.
The 2012-13 Leafs outshot their opponents 29.9 to 28.6 in January but were outshot by six per game in February, five per game in March and a ridiculous 10.5 per game in April prior to that fateful series with the Bruins.
They had several great games against Boston; they had a lot of lousy ones against everyone else.
It’s forgotten now, but they very nearly frittered away that playoff berth, too. If not for James Reimer’s .930 save percentage and Phil Kessel’s 18 points in 12 games, the Leafs’ April of 2013 would have been remembered for yet another ugly collapse instead of the month where they finally clinched a long-awaited playoff spot.
(And that doesn’t even get into that team’s extremely high shooting percentage, which was doomed to regress had the season been longer than 48 games.)
It sure seems Nonis is trying to recapture the magic from that lock-out shorted season thinking that can be duplicated over the course of a full season.
Unless of course Nonis sees what many of us see – a team that will be hard pressed to make the playoffs and the collapses that this organization has become familiar with are more the norm than the exception.
If that’s the case than Nonis may be the smartest man in the room: He didn’t overspend this offseason, while appearing to go younger ensuring another missed playoff season.
And a chance to be in the Connor McDavid sweepstakes.
