Milan Lucic
It’s official. The Leafs will face the Bruins in round one.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for the Habs on Tuesday. As much as the last four games against the Habs have been a mixed bag, the Leafs have been able to play their game and play to their strengths against Montreal. The Leafs have played the Bs much more competitively this season, but the Bruins have still been effective at negating the Leafs speed and skill up front, slowing them down and forcing them to grind for every goal. While the Bruins have backed into the playoffs, their forecheck is still top notch. For a Leafs team that struggles to diffuse a forecheck with efficient breakouts, that’s a scary prospect. The Bruins have experience, the core of a past Stanley Cup winner and play a tough playoff brand of hockey. [more…]
In part three of his 12 burning questions series, Derek Harmsworth looks at whether Mike Komisarek can rebound from a tumultuous first season in Blue and White.
It's no secret that Brian Burke likes his hockey teams to be, for the most part, big, nasty, and in your face physical. Â He also has a penchant for looking for players from his home country of the United States, but as he said, he would sign players who were from the moon if they could play the game. [more…]
We’ve partnered up with Pension Plan Puppets to bring to you a Player Review series, where we will be evaluating and grading the 2009-10 season for every Leaf who featured in a significant number of games for the Blue and White last season, with an eye towards 2010-11. Next up we feature Mike Komisarek, profiled by Alec Brownscombe.
The Summary: Mike Komisarek entered the 2009-10 season on a new five year, 22.5 million contract (4.5 per) with hopes that the change of scenery to different albeit analogous surroundings would help restore his '07-08 form after a setback of a  '08-09 season. In a year of injury and acrimony (including charges of a lack of focus), Komisarek would sit among league leaders in giveaways and seemed to reach a breaking point in his embarrassing bouts with Milan Lucic in the playoffs. While Komisarek overcomplicated his defensive game and was often caught out of position as a result, the silver lining remained Komisarek's team-leading 191 hits and top five shot block total.
Since the Montreal Canadiens disposed of the Toronto Maple Leafs in an overtime decision in the season-opener on Oct.1, Mike Komisarek has been chastised by Habs fans, even garnering the nickname, “Homosarek.â€--- but I have to admit, that one is actually pretty damn funny.
However, what Canadiens fans fail to recognize is that Komisarek, in the midst of a slump, has performed quite well in comparison to the Canadiens’ defensemen in terms of defensive statistics---except for +/-, which is generally a team stat, and I don’t have to show you where the Leafs are currently positioned in that regard.
It feels strange to have the similar attitude of Bill Watters on Leafs Lunch towards prized free agent acquisition, Mike Komisarek’s regular season debut against his former club. But … here we are.
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It took sometime to manifest, prolonged in the wake of shoulder surgery and stunted contract talks, but the September 10th news that negotiations between the Boston Bruins, Wade Arnott and Phil Kessel had come to an impasse reignited the rumor mill that has surrounded the Leafs and the Madison, Wisconsin sniper since Brian Burke first tabled Tomas Kaberle in the infamous draft day “misunderstanding.â€
In the week that has passed since negotiations broke down, the value of Kessel has skyrocketed beyond the original RFA compensation of a 1st, 2nd and 3rd round selection in the 2010 draft.
While the majority of Leafs fans wrote the team off in the summer, it wasn’t until the New Year that the teams first true season of rebuilding began the inevitable grind into early year golf tournaments.
The craft of writing fiction requires an author’s innate ability to capture - and maintain - the reader’s attention. It’s sleight of hand - or pen in this instance, with twists and turns deciphering an ending not envisioned by the reader. The process takes vision, vivid imagination, a well scripted story line and ‘sleight of pen’ to playfully mislead readers into a perceived outcome, while planting thoughts and doubts that in the end make for a fantastic story.
It happens in the hockey world, too, and might be happening to Leafs fans currently. It could be a main factor in drafting Victor Hedman over John Tavares in the 2009 draft.
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The league has announced a 3 game suspension for Maple Leafs rookie Mikhail Grabovski after the “abuse of an official†during last night’s loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The game got heated, and former Canadien, Grabovski, tried to go after the encouraging Sergei Kostitsyn, but were both held by the officials – Grabovski was pinned to the ice. The “intervention†(which no one ever likes) caused both to become quite upset and, ultimately, Grabovski got up off the ice, used some choice words (which are assumed to have translated into English as “I don’t like your faceâ€) then bumped into the official who pinned him and used the same words on the linesman. Near the end of Grabovski’s speech, he kicked ice at the official (oooo) and skated off the ice giving the audience a double peace-sign – very political.
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