Now Comes the Hard Part

Burke's Crew Still a Long Way's Off from Having to Make the Tough Decisions - Mike Langlois at Vintage Leaf Memories

The Leafs are young, and that’s great. They have some skill, but the talent level is hardly over-whelming. We are now talking about a team and an organization that has, as its central ambition this season, making the Eastern Conference playoffs. That's a pretty low bar.

As a modest objective in a non-hockey market, that would be nice. And it’s OK, I suppose, even in Toronto, given the team has not been in the playoffs for 8 seasons.

But Burke will soon be entering his 4^th year on the job. His much un-desired—and often publicly stated—"five year re-build" (that is, he has said many times he did not have the patience to spend five years building the team) will now, in fact, be the very best he can hope to achieve.

So now comes the real challenge. Expectation here have been so crippled, so minimal, that making the playoffs with a young, hard-working team will satisfy us, it seems. But how long can that last?

More links after the jump.

Leafs Links

Remaking The Leafs' Penalty Kill

What would be the impact of serious improvements? And who's going to be on this unit?

Maple Leafs Rally to Beat Senators

The book is out on Robin Lehner. Go glove high.

Can the Maple Leafs Make the Playoffs in 2012?

Maybe?

#PhilKesselMyths

As Jonathan Willis points out, Mike Brophy is a tard.

Boston, the Worst Sports City in America

Yep. Has to be true right?