Photo: David Abel/Toronto Sun
The locking up of John Michael Liles for the next four seasons further evidences Brian Burke’s team building philosophy is moving towards speed and skill and away from size and toughness.
When Burke first arrived in Toronto he quickly moved to bring in Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek to join Luke Schenn as a formidable, physical trio. Not even three years later and there’s a clear group of three defensemen the Leafs are building on, but the theme is not physicality this time.
With Liles now in Toronto for the long haul, he joins, in my mind, Dion Phaneuf and Jake Gardiner as foreseeable locks on the blue line for years to come. +Continue Reading
Photo: Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Brian Burke was harshly scrutinized for the now infamous Phil Kessel swap. Back then, he gave up three potential NHLers for a single yet proven commodity. Now, with Tyler Seguin and Doug Hamilton set to lead the Bruins for years to come, it’s scary to imagine how badly Burke would be harped if Kessel wasn’t off to his best season in the league to date.
One thing Leafs’ fans know for certain is that we’ll take Phil Kessel’s dominance and run, because Bruins’ fans will never get back what Peter Chiarelli surrendered for about 40 games of Tomas Kaberle. If you remember, at the time of the deal, the value coming back was considered fair as we didn’t really know what we were getting in Joe Colborne, and draft picks are always hit and miss when outside of the top ten. +Continue Reading
Photo: sportsnet.ca
I planned on writing about the Liles extension as a preamble into answering these questions, but once I began writing it I realized that it was a blog all on its own. With that said, I’ll be posting an in depth blog soon looking solely at the Liles signing and just exactly what it means.
I narrowed down the questions a little this time around due to the feedback. Hope you enjoy it and as shown, I do read through those comments and take what you guys into consideration, so always feel free to chime in. +Continue Reading
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Much has already been said of the struggles of Grabovski, Kulemin and MacArthur this season when playing with each other, so I won’t bore you further with another long diatribe. Instead we’re going to take a look at what it is that stats can show us about areas that have led to these decreased levels of play. Of course, I had the concept of this article all done before they had that amazing game against the Islanders on Tuesday, so I sound a little like a crazy person but that’s life.
As far as point production goes, only Grabovski is on a good pace. His 16 goals and 32 points puts him on an 82 game pace of 30 goals and 61 points. Kulemin is on an 82 game pace of 8 goals and 33 points while MacArthur is on a 27 goal, 46 point pace. This was easily the most productive line last season, so the drop off in production is quite surprising to many. +Continue Reading
Image: The Sun
Some surprising news this morning, as the Leafs have announced a four-year contract extension for blueliner John-Michael Liles, who was set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
From TSN:
The Toronto Maple Leafs will announce today that the club has signed defenceman John-Michael Liles to a four-year, $15.5 million contract extension.
It’s weird timing for a move like this, considering Liles has missed the last fifteen games with a concussion. This extension also stirs up a lot of rumors about what the Leafs will do in the next couple weeks, now that they’ve potentially taken a good chunk of cash away from being used to shop in the summer.
image courtesy of The Marlies. Click to enlarge. (Photo: Credit: Graig Abel)
“The Marlies scored seven times to drop the Hamilton Bulldogs 7-2 at Ivor Wynne Stadium on Saturday afternoon. After the Bulldogs went ahead 1-0 just 27 seconds into the game, the Marlies responded with three first period goals. Marcel Mueller pushed the Marlies lead to 4-1 mid-way through the second period. Hamilton made it a two-goal game going into the second intermission. +Continue Reading
