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Category: Toronto-Maple-Leafs
Toronto Maple Leafs Organizational Depth Chart – Left Wing
by @TheDailyBites on 05/21/12 at 10:19 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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This is the fourth article in a series looking at the Toronto Maple Leafs organizational depth by position. Thus far I have completed my review of goalies, defensemen and center icemen in the organization and that leaves us with wingers to round things out. As I stated in my previous article, most forwards can play multiple positions and often do throughout a season, I will do my best to categorize players as centers, left wingers or right wingers. For example, I am including Nazem Kadri in the right winger evaluation. Although Kadri plays center with the AHL Toronto Marlies, he has almost been exclusively a right winger in his stints with the Maple Leafs which suggests that he will be a winger at the NHL level.
Left Wingers on 2011-12 roster:
Joffrey Lupul
Nikolai Kulemin
Mike Brown
Joey Crabb
Jay Rosehill
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Depth+Chart, Prospects,
Toronto Maple Leafs Organizational Depth Chart – Center
by @TheDailyBites on 05/13/12 at 06:49 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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This is the third article in a series looking at the Toronto Maple Leafs organizational depth by position. Thus far I have completed my review of goalies and defensemen and next up will be a look at the organizational depth at the center ice position. Since most forwards can play multiple positions and often do throughout a season, I will do my best to categorize players as center, right wing or left wing. For example, I am not including Nazem Kadri in the center evaluation. Although Kadri plays center with the AHL Toronto Marlies, he has almost been exclusively a winger in his stints with the Maple Leafs which suggests that he will be a winger at the NHL level.
Center’s on 2011-12 roster:
Tyler Bozak
Mikhail Grabovski
Tim Connolly
Matthew Lombardi
David Steckel
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Center, Prospects,
Can the Maple Leafs Draw Hope From the Ottawa Senators?
by @TheDailyBites on 05/09/12 at 08:38 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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The Ottawa Senators ended the 2010-11 season in 13th place in the Eastern Conference and 26th place overall in the NHL and looked to be on track for a painful rebuild. As they entered this past season they were picked by many analysts to be battling for the first overall pick, not the playoffs. Well Brian Murray, Eugene Melnyk and the rest of the Senators organization proved everyone wrong by making the playoffs and they were one win away from eliminating the first place NY Rangers in their first round playoff series.
Now that the Toronto Marlies are one win away from the Western Conference Finals in the Calder Cup playoffs, many people are beginning to draw comparisons between last season’s Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs. But is this a fair comparison?
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Prospects, Toronto+Marlies,
Toronto Maple Leafs Organizational Depth Chart – Defensemen
by @TheDailyBites on 05/07/12 at 09:12 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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I will be posting a series of articles looking at the Toronto Maple Leafs organizational depth by position. I started the series last week with goaltenders and I am continuing from the net out and going with defensemen next.
Defensemen on 2011-12 roster:
Dion Phaneuf
Carl Gunnarsson
John-Michael Liles
Mike Komisarek
Luke Schenn
Cody Franson (RFA)
Jake Gardiner
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Defensemen, Depth+Chart, Prospects, Toronto,
Toronto Maple Leafs Organizational Depth – Goalies
by @TheDailyBites on 05/02/12 at 09:32 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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I will be posting a series of articles looking at the Toronto Maple Leafs organizational depth by position. Brian Burke says that he likes to build his teams from the net out so that is where I will be starting.
Goalies on 2011-12 roster:
James Reimer
Jonas Gustavsson (UFA)
Goaltending was a major issue for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2011-12. The Maple Leafs signed James Reimer to a 3 year deal after a great stint with the big club in 2010-11 and Reimer looked to be the answer in goal for the Leafs. However, he struggled after suffering a concussion early in the season and never was able to get back on track. Gustavsson looked very good at times this past season but consistency continues to be his biggest issue. As he heads into unrestricted free agency we can be fairly certain that he won’t be back with the Maple Leafs for the 2012-13 season.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Goalies, Prospects,
Two Goaltenders the Toronto Maple Leafs Should Target This Off-Season
by @TheDailyBites on 04/29/12 at 08:42 PM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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There is no doubt that the goaltender is the single most influential player on any hockey team and rivals that of a quarterback in football for how much impact the position has on the game. Although having good goaltending does not guarantee success, not having it is a recipe for failure.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been a prime example of this over a seven year stretch in which they have not made the playoffs. Some will argue that the Maple Leafs just haven’t iced a good enough team to finish in the top eight in the Eastern Conference, which is a debatable point. What is not debatable is how inconsistent and below average their goaltending has been over that time period.
When James Reimer jumped into the Maple Leaf goal in the 2010-11 NHL season and posted an impressive 20-10-5 record with a 2.60 goals against average and a .921 save percentage it looked like the Maple Leafs finally had there answer in goal. Reimer looked so good in that he was rewarded with a 3 year deal at $1.8 million per season. Unfortunately Reimer suffered a concussion early in the season and never appeared to recover.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Goalies,
What Can Maple Leaf Fans Expect With the Fifth Overall Pick?
by @TheDailyBites on 04/26/12 at 08:51 AM ET | View all posts by @TheDailyBites
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With the conclusion of the NHL Draft lottery last week, reality has begun to set in for Toronto Maple Leaf fans as they were not able to move up to the first pick in the upcoming draft. I thought I would take some time to look back at past fifth overall picks to see what kind of player the Maple Leafs might expect to get with this draft position.
I reviewed the last 33 NHL drafts from 1979 - 2011 and there are some very recognizable names that have been drafted with the fifth pick including Scott Stevens, Jaromir Jagr and Phil Kessel. There are also some names that I have never heard of like Daniel Dore.
In performing my analysis it was important that I made things as statistically driven as possible. To do this I developed the following player rating criteria:
100 – Star player: top 3 forward, top pair defenseman or an elite starting goalie.
50 – Good player: top 6 forward, top 4 defenseman or a starting goalie over multiple seasons.
25 – Role Player: forward or defenseman with 200+ games or a goalie with 100+ starts.
10 – Depth Player: forward or defenseman with 51-199 games or a goal with 51-99 starts.
5 – Minor League Player: forward or defenseman with 1-50 games or a goalie with 50 or less starts.
0 – Bust: drafted player with zero NHL games.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: NHL+Entry+Draft,
How does this make sense?
by Shiv on 11/12/10 at 02:35 PM ET | View all posts by Shiv
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Forget the fact that the Leafs can’t buy a goal these days.
Why is Brian Burke deviating from what he has been stating for the past year? As early as 3 weeks ago, he went on the record to say that Kadri simply needs more time in the AHL - that rushing him to the NHL does not make sense.
So after the same Nazem Kadri is called up today, I have to ask the “Why? Why Burkie?”
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Brian+Burke, Nazem+Kadri, Ron+Wilson,
Kadri and Aulie Called Up
by Shiv on 11/12/10 at 09:56 AM ET | View all posts by Shiv
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Nazem Kadri and Keith Aulie have been called up. This is going to be interesting.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Aulie, Kadri,
From the Net Out
by Shiv on 11/10/10 at 01:52 PM ET | View all posts by Shiv
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For the first time this season, The Leafs are below the 500 mark. The talk around the city is that scoring is the problem and that criticism is not without merit (especially after being shutout 3 times in the last 6 games).
When the Leafs began the season 4-0-0, goals were aplenty. In those first 4 games, the Leafs scored 16 goals. In the 10 games since, they have scored 15. So naturally, the criticism wanders towards the area that was present before but is absent now.
But let’s be honest here. Outside of Kessel, the Leafs’ top 6 isn’t actually a top 6. It’s a collection of forwards who would slot 4 through 9 on virtually every other team in the NHL. Bozak is a prime example of this phenomenon. The City of Toronto has been all over the Leafs’ Line 1 Center to start playing like one, when that is not what he is (not yet anyways <- that’s the fan in me talking). Versteeg, Kulemin, Grabovski and MacArthur are no different.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs | KK Members Blog | Permalink
Tags: Brian+Burke, Giguere, Grabovski, Gustavsson, Jacques+Lemaire, Kessel, Kulemin, Ron+Wilson, Versteeg,
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