Results tagged “torontomapleleafs”

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of the Toronto Maple Leafs' start to the 2009/10 hockey season. It's not just the lack of wins that's puzzling: it's how bad the team's looked in compiling its 0-6-1 record. Right now, the Leafs seem bereft of talent, ideas, leadership, and desire. Surely they won't be like this all year?

One game, one blown third period lead. And while Leaf fans can take a lot of positives from tonight's season-opening, 4-3 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens, it’s a game Toronto really should’ve won. The Leafs were all over Carey Price’s net the entire game (final shot tally: 46–27). They were also leading with under five minutes left to play—then squandered a weak tying goal (thanks in part to Mike Komisarek, who spent just under a quarter of his Maple Leafs debut in the penalty box) and a totally preventable game-winner (the usually reliable Luke Schenn will want to forget his role in that one). Of course, it’s only one game, and all the work Brian Burke put into shoring up the team’s defense should eventually pay off…but these late collapses will have to stop. Last year, the Leafs’ eight blown third period leads resulting in losses cost them a shot at the postseason. If this year’s team is going to compete, improvement in this one category would be a pretty good place to start.

When Brian Burke arrived in Toronto last November, he promised a Maple Leaf team full of "pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence.” He wasn’t kidding: barely seven months into his tenure as the Leafs’ thirteenth general manager, Burke has begun creating exactly that.

Nazem Kadri is the newest fresh-faced teenager to arrive in Toronto with the responsibility of resurrecting a moribund franchise—this, after the Maple Leafs selected him seventh overall from the London Knights in tonight’s NHL Entry Draft. In the end, Brian Burke’s aggressive pursuit of a higher draft position yielded nothing; speculation that the Leafs would trade up in order to select Brayden Schenn, brother of Luke, ended when the younger Schenn went fifth overall to the Los Angeles Kings. Kadri will likely need at least another year of junior hockey before joining the big club. And we’re fine with that: now that there’s a regime in charge with apparent commitment to rebuilding, we’re happy to put our faith in Burke and his plan. Welcome to the Maple Leafs, Nazem! You're forgiven for being a childhood Habs fan.

May is a good month to follow European football soccer, not so good to follow the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It’s that time of year again, the time when Canadians feel obligated to throw their unconditional support behind the last Canadian team playing for the Stanley Cup. This year's bearer of "the Cup dreams of an entire nation" (as TSN's Jennifer Hedger put it) is the Vancouver Canucks, who eliminated the St. Louis Blues in a surprisingly easy four-game sweep. (Neither of the other two Canadian playoff participants, the Montreal Canadiens or the Calgary Flames, made it out of Round #1—although at least the Flames didn’t get swept, nor did their fans litter the ice after the team was eliminated.) The question is: should Leaf fans be doing likewise?

With the NHL regular season wrapping up this weekend, we thought we were finished with “predictable digs at Maple Leaf fans in the sports media” for another year. But then along came Pierre LeBrun, who writes for (among other things) ESPN.com, to take one final shot: in his season-ending wrap-up column, LeBrun awarded Leaf fans with his “Suckers United Award.” “Once again, they packed the joint at the Air Canada Centre for a crappy team that missed the playoffs for a fourth straight season,” LaBrun snickered. “Ticket prices are going up, and Leafs fans can’t wait to open their wallets. The Cup drought is 42 years and counting.” (Meanwhile, we could've predicted the content of Damien Cox's riposte to the standing ovation following the Leafs' season-ending win over the Ottawa Senators before even reading it.) Baiting Leaf fans is, of course, a hallmark of slapdash, second-rate hockey writing—yet while we shouldn’t be letting men like LeBrun or Cox affect us, we’re getting sick of hearing about how stupid we are (“sucker” is ultimately a euphemism for “idiot”) because we happen to cheer for a losing team.

For the Toronto Maple Leafs it's all over but the shouting, which leaves them with one last thing to do this season: spoil someone else’s. Two of their four remaining opponents are still jostling for playoff positions; beating Montreal (tonight) and/or Buffalo (next Wednesday) would put a tiny bit of gloss on a meaningless final week. Cheering against another team, even if it's the Canadiens, is the last refuge of the sports loser, but it’s the best we can do for the time being. There certainly wasn't much to cheer about last night, an 8–5 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers which was nowhere near as close as the final score suggests (the Leafs were down 5–0 after the first period and were trailing 6–0 before mounting an abortive "comeback"). But the game was at least somewhat noteworthy because of Christian Hanson, the former Notre Dame star—and yes, the son of the Slap Shot actor—who played 17:38 in his Maple Leafs debut. Again, it's not much, but it's the kind of thing you look for at the tail end of yet another lost season.

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.

Trade deadline has become an odd sort of ritual for Canadian sports fans. It’s frankly tedious, yet it’s also undeniably gripping—because trade deadline, in one way or another, symbolizes hope for almost every NHL team.

Ah, the Battle of Ontario: remember how it used to matter? Remember how an undermanned Leaf team eliminating a powerhouse Senator team from the playoffs became an annual rite of spring? So do we—but those days are behind us for the time being. The Leafs and the Senators limp into tonight’s contest in suburban Ottawa mired in twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh place, respectively, in a thirty-team league. The Leafs were supposed to struggle this year; the Senators certainly weren’t, and they certainly weren't supposed to be the second-lowest-scoring team in the league, not with their Big Three (Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson) providing the offence. So why would you waste a perfectly good evening watching two teams jostle for draft position? Because tonight could be your last chance to see several players, Nik Antropov and Tomas Kaberle among them, wearing the Maple Leaf uniform. The NHL trade deadline is next Wednesday, and the Maple Leafs will look much different in one week's time. That, if nothing else, makes tonight’s Battle of Ontario worth watching in our eyes.

Given his flair for the dramatic, it seemed almost inevitable that Mats Sundin would cap his return to Toronto with a game-winning goal. He did exactly that, scoring the shootout winner as his new team, the Vancouver Canucks, came from behind to beat the Maple Leafs 3–2. A scattering of boos accompanied Sundin throughout the game—but a first period video montage of Sundin’s Maple Leaf career allowed the fans to applaud their former captain, and they seized the opportunity. By the end of it, Sundin was on the brink of tears; then, as he’s tended to do throughout his NHL career, he saved his best for last, beating Vesa Toskala with a perfect backhander for the winner. Seldom has a Leaf loss felt so sweet.

Mats Sundin returns to Toronto tomorrow. It'll be nothing if not interesting.

Ten years ago today, Maple Leaf Gardens hosted its final National Hockey League game. And ten years further on, we still haven’t learned the building's ultimate fate—still haven’t learned what'll happen to "the Grand Old Lady of Carlton Street," the last of the famed Original Six arenas.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Air Canada Centre, the waterfront home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, and the Toronto Rock and the preferred stadium for visiting top-forty artists. The ACC first opened with a Leafs game on February 19, 1999, a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens (which, amazingly, came within a day of not being aired on account of a CBC technicians' strike).

If Luke Schenn represents the future for the Toronto Maple Leafs, then the future got a little bit brighter last night. Schenn was instrumental in Toronto's wild 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. His bone-crunching hit on Penguins superstar Evgeni Malkin set the tone; in the subsequent melee, Schenn fought Tyler Kennedy and took him down not once, but twice, before skating to the penalty box with the crowd chanting his name. In the third period, he made an unexpected dart in from the blueline before setting up Matt Stajan's go-ahead goal. Finally, Schenn was named the game's first star. That the best game of Schenn's young NHL career occurred on a night when the team honoured former captain Doug Gilmour did not escape attention. More nights like this, and Schenn will be wearing the captain's "C" himself someday.

The Maple Leafs begin the unofficial second half of the NHL season tonight in Minnesota. But the week's big event occurs Saturday, when the team honours former captain Doug Gilmour before their game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It's happening. The Toronto Maple Leafs are actually tanking.

Bryan McCabe is back in town tonight—and like the protagonist in “Boots or Hearts,” he’ll probably be all squint-eyed and confused when he steps onto the Air Canada Centre ice as a member of the Florida Panthers and hears nineteen thousand fans (many of them wearing replica McCabe jerseys) booing him.

Mats Sundin—last seen shilling for PokerStars.net and, before that, captaining your Toronto Maple Leafs—is a thirty-seven-year old man headed west. He signed with the Vancouver Canucks yesterday afternoon.

Mats Sundin is no longer a Maple Leaf: he's off to the Vancouver Canucks, choosing to sign with the team because they have better Stanley Cup prospects. We'll have more about the move tomorrow, but suffice to say we, along with most everyone else, have been wondering how he's lasted here this long.

Tomorrow, for the first time since March 16, 1996, the Toronto Maple Leafs won’t be playing on a non-holiday, regular season Saturday. They play tonight in Buffalo; they won’t be in action again until next Tuesday.

The Brian Burke saga, or at least the first part of it, is over. We’re as surprised as anyone—Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment tends to struggle with straightforward tasks—but today, Burke was officially unveiled as the new President and General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Never a dull moment in Leafland: with the team in the midst of its first western Canadian road trip in almost three years, the Brian Burke saga resurfaced once again. Last Wednesday, Burke resigned as general manager of the Anaheim Ducks; a day later he was given permission to avail himself to other teams. In theory, there’re twenty-nine places he could end up. Realistically, there’s probably only one.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in Calgary tonight to take on the Flames, and as fans we'd be remiss if we didn't mention what happened the last time they met. Thanks to the NHL's wonky "unbalanced" schedule, the Leafs and the Flames haven't played each other since October 14, 2006. On that night, Mats Sundin made history.

Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.

The latest Maple Leafs marketing campaign has been all over the airwaves for the last month (if you haven't seen the ads, the short version is viewable here). Interspersed with vintage clips of the Leafs, fans of all generations and all backgrounds share memories of their favourite goals. Their play-by-play recaps capture how the dramatic tension of on-ice action carries the fan on a slow-building crescendo from hopeful anticipation to full-bore celebration. With barely any actual clips of gameplay, the commercials are all about how, for the most part, the fan's experience occurs away from the game in conversation, water-cooler debate, and reminiscences of better days. As Lance Martin, the creative director at TAXI 2—an offshoot of TAXI, the always interesting agency—puts it, "the Leafs are a huge part of what it means to be Torontonian." And the nostalgia-tinged campaign is meant to ignite the passion and spirit Torontonians feel for their team. In this, it's the perfect marketing campaign to help fans weather the disappointment of what will likely be another losing season. On the other hand, the campaign's lack of a strong web presence limits how far it can reach.

In retrospect, we’re glad we didn’t let ourselves get too carried away by the Toronto Maple Leafs’ surprising opening day victory over the Detroit Red Wings. They haven’t won a game since, and instead have become (to paraphrase Dennis Green’s infamous rant) exactly who we thought they were.