In the Time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey

As a few of us discussed yesterday, there are a few"dark horse" teams in the East this season.  Why can't the Leafs be one of them?  How much better is the rest of the conference that we should resign ourselves to another season of losing? And then it hit me...

Why am I asking myself questions?

• Steve has a look at the missing C for the Leafs.
• The voting continues at TSM. For Kaberle, Burke, and all of us, Saturday is the day of reckoning.
• Down Goes Brown uses his league sources to obtain a copy of the NHL's new marketing plans.
• TML Nation wonders if more credit is due to Dave Nonis. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
• ...and start paying attention to Ilya Kovalchuk.  TML Nation is, and they're hoping Burke is as well.
• TML Central doesn't see a "Detroit Model" coming from the Leafs current direction. Is that a bad thing?
• Is "PLAYOFFS!!!1" an insane rally call, or sorta, kinda, maybe in the cards for the Leafs? More at TO Sports (with a kinda NSFW pic...)
• Remember all the ridiculous things you liked as a teenager? Sens fans revel in that...
• Are Doug Gilmour's Kingston Frontenacs that bad? Out of Left Field says yes.
• Lastly, for the iCal peeps, the NHL schedule in iCal format./

UPDATE

The boy wonder, jrwendelman, gives us 10% of the Patrick Kane brouhaha