Here's a look at the Leafs' injury situation:
Injuries have also been a problem for Toronto, which is without forwards Alex Steen (shoulder), Alexei Ponikarovsky (shoulder), Chad Kilger (personal), Mark Bell (orbital bone), John Pohl (ankle) and Nik Antropov (suspension) and defenseman Bryan McCabe(hand).
Of course, traditionally the call-ups from the AHL have performed extremely well. For at least one night on Saturday that was again true. We need this to stop tonight. The Leafs have already beaten the kittens twice this year which means that they could be even further from them in the standings. A win tonight would put the two teams in a tie with les chats winning on the first tie-breaker. Better that the felines win since it'll put them back into the Foppa Sweepstakes.
Things in Sunrise are not all rainbows and lollipops despite boasting a handful talented youngsters like Horton, Weiss, and Bouwmeester. Apparently Jacques Martin cannot inspire his team. We all knew that about two playoff eliminations of the sens ago. Someone should have asked us.
Jacques Martin has called up Anthony Stewart, a local boy who will no doubt kill the Leafs (hooray!), and had some not so nice words about Mats Sundin:
Olli and JM faced the trade-crazed Toronto media this morning, nothing new said. JM said it isn't fair to say Mats Sundin and Olli are comparable as far as trade talks go. Not only does Mats have an expiring contract and Olli has two-plus years left, but JM says Olli is a player in his prime, Mats at the end of his career. Didn't hear many questions after that.
Geez Jacques. You had a front seat to seeing Sundin's genius three times (once he even gave you a shot and took a series off) and you don't think that Mats is worth more than Olli 'I love to toil in obscurity' Jokinen? Mats was pumping out point a game seasons at the same age that Jokinen was still trying to learn to skate on the slush in Florida.
Why is Olli better? Because he outscored Mats the last two years? Well who has more points this year? I'll give you two guesses but you'll only need one. That's right, it's the Captain of the Maple Leafs (22-24-56 v. 25-26-51 in 54 GP each). Let's look at Jokinen's Behind The Net 5-on-5 stats: 2.39 GFON / 2.90 GAON = -.61. That means that for every 60 minutes of even strength hockey that Jokinen plays he's a negative player. Compare that to Mats' stats: 3.72 GFON / 2.58 GAON = +1.14 which means that for every 60 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time Mats is worth 1.75 goals more than Olli 'I have never captained Sweden to an Olympic gold medal' Jokinen.
"Didn't hear many questions after that." Well George, that might be because the Toronto media felt too bad about Martin's playoff history with the Leafs to hammer him after saying something so monumentally stupid.
Anyway, make your SPG predictions and try to guess which defenceman will get the boot when McCabe comes back. Chemmy says it'll be White but I would think that it would be Stralman. If White does get the boot/traded for anything good then it'll be Stralman and Gill on the third pairing.
