How Stempniak REALLY Became First Star

To Hell with Lee Stempniak!

Stempniak as did Blake, personified what it meant to be the classic posterboy for underachieving Leaf failure. Let’s remember he was moved here initially by Cliff in an attempt to bolster a weak Leaf team lacking offensive capability.

This failed trade cost us a promising Alex Steen (62-23-23-46) and an injury prone Carlo Colaicovo(62-5-22-27).

The argument that Stemps provided or played with grit is basically laughable. Please this is Lee Stempniak we are discussing, the words Stempniak and grit are not synonymous so please let us end this debate.

Furthermore Lee Stempniak neither needs nor deserves your well wishes -again this is a player we sacraficed alot to obtain and in divesting ourselves of this “failure” we have essentially ONLY recouped a bag of pucks and a small already half eaten popcorn – (4th and 7th rounders respectively).

As for his production with Phoenix…

The only reason Stempniak has produced much of anything with Phoenix does not so much relate in my opinion to having a play maker to play with as does the fact that he is in a contract year and found himself in a situation come seasons end of potential financial irrelevance.

This my friends boils down simply to a question of dollars and cents.

Lee Stempniak is in a contract year, nothing more and nothing less. He is playing hard now only because he knows if he doesn’t he cannot command more money when he’s on the open market. This tenure with Phoenix was Stemps only gasp at making more than maybe 1.5 to 1.75.

DO NOT be fooled by Stempniak’s bloated production, Stempniak is garbage and will continue to be garbage for whatever team adds him to their roster moving forward. Always remember he was awful for us and did little of anything for our team in retrospect. (*For proof name one truly positive Stempniak moment off the top of your head if you doubt this.)

I do not wish Lee Stempniak any success in the future, he played small time hockey here when only half of what he is doing currently in Phoenix was expected of him.

He wasted a roster spot and cost us far too much money against the cap for his spotty, sloppy, uninspired play.

Good riddance Stemps, congratulations on deciding to play a little hockey, we all know it won’t last long so enjoy it while you can. Maybe with your recent play you’ll be able to sucker some poor rube of a GM into signing you for something more than you are acutally worth…

As for me I wouldn’t offer you more than the 1.5 to 1.75 we both know your worth.

All the best Leafers and Leafettes,

~Realitycorp

Sorry Bob in this instance it’s a case of 2 little 2 late. In this clip we can see Stemps (albeit admittedly effectively) killing a penalty, this however was certainly not what he was brought here to do.

Remember also that during this timeframe the Leafs historically speaking were well within the top 15 worst penalty killing teams in all of recorded NHL history. Not exactly a statistical feather in the elite penalty killing Stempniak’s cap.

Sorry Bob the only thing classless in all of this was Stempniak’s play during his brief tenure with the Blue and White. He was brought here to score goals and by scoring a mere 25 in 123 games we have all the statistical evidence necessary to villfy him.

So to hell with Stempniak again I say Bob, perhaps you enjoyed his marginal 3rd line play, I however did not.

Sometimes reality does bite but in this case the only thing bitten off was something far more than Stempniak was prepared to chew.

~Realitycorp