Petition to Get Mike Palmateer a Cell Phone

Okay, I'll make this quick, but I am BAFFLED.

This is a Toronto Star article by Damien Cox about the scouting of Jonas Gustavsson. It features quotes from Brian Burke, Ron Wilson, and primarily, Leafs scout Mike Palmateer. It's actually a good article and it shows the journey that it took to get the Monster to sign with the Leafs. As we've seen, he truly looks like a #1 goalie as Vesa Toskala hangs out on the bench talking to Mikael Grabovski about hair products. There's one part that's especially troubling to me.

"I'm actually walking pretty good these days, but I have to be careful," he said Wednesday from his car phone. "I'm pretty sure that if I even looked at a pair of skates, something would tear."

His CAR PHONE!? The man works as a professional hockey scout and can't invest in a cell phone? His primary job is to make calls and speak to others and arrange travel and he's still using an effing car phone?! What century does he live in? Is his car phone attatched to a horse and carriage? Is Brian Burke doing his radio interviews with a tin can on a string?

MLSE was announced again as the richest hockey franchise. Well now you know why! They're ripping off the rest of their employees! Does anyone have any benefits over there? No wonder Mike Van Ryn is always injured, the poor guy doesn't get any health care! Does Ron Wilson make his pregame notes on a typewriter? Did Jason Blake get his people skills at a yard sale? Does Tomas Kaberle groom his eyebrows with Tom Sellick's old moustache groomer?

Forget the salary cap, boys, we've got far bigger issues here.

MAKE SOME NOISE. START A RIOT. GET MIKE PALMATEER A CELL PHONE.

L&L

Petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/leaflion/petition.html

30 Realistic Goals for the Remainder of the Season

VICTORY!

The Leafs finally pick up their first win. Gustavsson makes key saves, Nik Hagman leads the offense, Kaberle has the best game of his career, and the Leafs are playing the truculent style that Burke has put them together to play. Great to get a win, but it's going to make it way harder to lose if we go down in Dallas tonight. Not to mention I hate Dallas. So... lets not. Hopefully Gustavsson shuts down the team tonight he shut down in the off-season to play with the Leafs. Moving on.

Before the season started, I took some time to review our teams forwards and defence. As opposed to writing about what's happened all month, I'm going to change directions a bit and talk about what we should be accomplishing for the remainder of the year. Getting our first win was the first mountain to clim, so here's a list of the top remaining 30 goals that should be posted in the Leafs dressing room. I'll tick them off as they're accomplished throughout the year.

1. Beat the Montreal Canadiens. I'm sick of Habs fans. We should have won the first game, we played pretty well and a good portion of my buddies are Montreal fans: I've taken a bit of a beating lately so nothing would be better than the Leafs picking up a win when I'm piss drunk in my Wendel Clark hallowe'en costume.

2. Call up Tyler Bozak. The kid is awesome, he provides creativity like Grabovski, playmaking like Stajan, hockey smarts like Wallin, and chippy play like John Mitchell. So why is he not a centre for the big club?

3. Resolve the Toskala affair. Phantom knee injuries aside, I don't think I've felt more sympathy for a human being than I do for Vesa Toskala. Not only did playing in Toronto ruin his confidence and career, I'm pretty sure it ruined his life. He's like the kid getting bullied at the bus stop. Cut the cord, trade him somewhere. Maybe him and a prospect for Giguere. I know that seems crazy but Anaheim is on the hook for a 6 million dollar backup for two more years while Toskala could backup in a less stressful environment, save Anaheim cap room, and come off the books at the end of the year. Giguere would waive his no-trade to play for Burke again and would be a great mentor for Gustavsson.

4. Establish Mike Komisarek as a leader. Komisarek has calmed down lately with steadier play and less trips to the box. He's hitting, standing up for his teammates, and blocking shots. No BS, just like he gets payed for. And if anyone is questioning his value, look at Tomas Kaberle's play since Komisarek arrived. The next step for him to take is to firmly establish himself as a leader for the Leafs. With Luke Schenn showing this year that he actually is a mortal human being, Komo is really looking like the next Leafs captain. At least for a while.

5. Luke Schenn finds his game. Schenn really has not looked good and I'd imagine his confidence is getting shakier and shakier. A Marlies trip might be in order but we need Luke to remember that he's good enough to be considered the face of our franchise.

6. Luke Schenn finds his little brother Brayden and gently reminds him that he is to sign for the Leafs immediately after his deal with the Kings is done.

7. Move Mikhail Grabovski to the wing. Grabo's faceoff timing is about as good as breaking up with a girlfriend on her birthday after she gets her leg devoured by a wild antelope. Or...something of that nature. Let him zip around on the wing.

8. Colton Orr deciding that pushing a linesman is not enough and he needs to hunt down referee Kerry Fraser and feed him some Belak's.

9. Get out of last place. Just do it.

10. Viktor Stalberg finds the net. We know he can score, we saw it in the preseason. He's played well and he's been a creative spark but I'd like to see his point production increase. How about 20 goals, Vikky?

11. Record a shutout. I'm looking at you, Jonas.

12. Beat the Sens. Light up Leclaire, nail Alfreddson, fight Neil, make fun of Jason Spezza's goofy laugh. Laugh at Bob Murray saying Jashon Spezzcha. Laugh at the fact that every time I try to type his name I type Bill Murray.

13. Bring in Phil Kessel and put him on a line with Stajan and Hagman. Let him light the lamp for the blue and white and start working on Marc Savard because Savard misses having an elite scorer to pass to. Yeah, I said it.

14. Get out of the bottom five. I can stomach not making the playoffs (ech...kind of) and I'm glad we traded away our first round pick but I can't handle seeing the B's getting Hall, Seguin, Fowler, or Kabonov.

15. Get Matt "The Most Electrifying Man in Sports" Stajan in a fight. I thought he was going for it against the Ducks, I almost shit my clothes. I'm still not convinced he has human emotions.

16. Leaf & Lion learns how to spell Alexei Ponikarovsky. Is that even right?

17. Garnet Exelby learns how to spell "Ian White". And "house".

18. Bring in Christian Hanson. He's exactly the type of big forward we need to play physical on the boards and more importantly, be a big presence in front of the net.

19. Ian White continues his moustache maintenance to the point that it's dense enough to block shots without pain and acts as a third shin pad.

20. Put a letter on Ian White's jersey. I always thought it was a mistake to outright name three A's instead of rotating them. Whitey's been our most consistent player for two years and everyone in the universe loves him (except Ilya Kovalchuk...who will hopefully love him next year). I wouldn't mind Ian White to be captain of the leafs. I'm serious.

21. Trade for a top six forward. Get rid of some of our excess clutter and piece together a package for someone like Nathan Horton as we need legitimate offence.

22. Mike Komisarek scores a goal. Or Exelby. I'm not fussy.

23. Go on a seven game winning streak. Let's balance the books, boys.

24. Give Jiri Tlusty a shot to make the step from amateur to professional and pose for playgirl magazine.

25. Beat the Canucks... who I never noticed before this year, might actually be more irritating than Sens fans and are quickly approaching Montreal level.

26. Reach .500. AND BEYOND!

27. Re-evaluate Jason Blake's role on the team. Yeah, I know what we're paying him. But let's face it: Jason Blake is a hard worker and decent secondary scoring but with his hussle and the fact that no one likes Jason Blake he'd be best served as a third line superpest.

28. Grabovski's hair grows to Jaromir Jagr level. Oh yes.

29. Nik Hagman scores 30 goals. Besides the fact that he just put in three against the Ducks and he scored the greatest goal in the history of hockey, here's a little known fact about Nik Hagman: He's got more points every year he's played since the lockout.

2004 Florida Panthers 30 2G 4A 6P
2005 Dallas Stars 51GP 5G 8A 13P

2006 Dallas Stars 82 GP 17G 12A 29P

2007 Dallas Stars 82 GP 27G 14P 41P

2008 Toronto Maple Leafs 65 GP 22G 20A 42P (on pace for an 82 game 28 goal year)

30. Return to the playoffs. As of October 28th 2009, 1-7-1, I still believe.

L&L

Curb your Enthusiam (And your Anger)

Alright, so we've got two games under our belt and we've yet to record a victory. We've also allowed ten goals total in those games. And we lost to the Canadiens, and my least favorite team in the NHL, the Capitals. And we didn't look all that mean against the Caps, to boot. So, right now we're on pace to record 41 points, make the 2008 Islanders look like the 1981 Islanders, and hand the Bruins Taylor Hall on a platter.

Haaaaaaaang on. There's still 80 games left, and that's more than enough to make the playoffs - which, I still predict we will, by the way. I'm making a firm effort to be less fickle this season.

The Leafs/Canadiens game was a fun watch. I watched with a split of Leafs and Habs fans and I got so drunk I had to go watch the highlights the next morning because the 3rd/OT were pretty hazy. Toskala didn't have an awful game but didn't do anything that could potentially win us the game (like Carey Price did). We need more from our goalies if we're going to get into the playoffs. We massively outshot the Canadiens and my main man Matty Stajan popped in two goals. Nice to see Orr and Rosehill work some magic, too, as I love people taking on Laraque and Orr did quite well. Francois Beachemin, after being considered our defensive rock and future captain had an absolute HOWLER of a game and he can't play that badly like...ever again. Ever. Overall, tough loss but we look a point of of it so life goes on.

Against the Caps, we needed Toskala to bounce back and set the tone that the Caps couldn't be sniping on him from all areas. Toskala figured it was better to let three in during the first period so we could toss Gustavsson to the most offensively gifted team in the NHL and he hopefully looked bad enough to give him another start over the Monster later in the week. Stalberg looked a lot more ordinary in this game (he is, after all, human...a human rookie, no less). Jamal Mayers was strong on the forecheck (I cannot believe I just gave Mayers credit for something) and if we can take one positive from this game, it's the 3rd. We settled down a bit and kept pushing in a game that was already gone, basically. The conditioning of the Leafs really shows as the 3rd period is usually reserved for defensive collapses. Minor note from that game: was anyone as surprised as I was with Orr/Primeau/Mayers getting as much ice time as they did?

So, those two games are done. Two. We've still got 97.84% of the season left. I think that's more than enough time to turn things around. What needs to be turned around, specifically? Well, it's fairly obvious. The usual suspects: goaltending, defence, and penalty killing. In that order.

GOALTENDING
Tick-tock, Toskala. Toskala has showed over and over that he really seems to be an average goaltender. He's healthy, he's got a back-up to push him, he's got a funny finnish accent, so what's the problem? It's seeming more and more that Vesa himself is the issue. Again, we're only two games in, but Gustavsson came in cold and still had a slightly better game than Vesa. However, It's clear that he's still a 24 year old goalie with a lot of promise as opposed to the Swedish Jesus that we've made him out to be - point being, we still need to have a good game in front of him to win some hockey games.

If we're sticking with the "no sense of entitlement", Gustavsson should get the nod next game as Toskala just hasn't been good enough. I think it's noteworthy that we have Joey McDonald with the Marlies who has proven on an awful Islanders team he can be a decent goaltender with a good save percentage. Keep him in the back of your mind and good thing we didn't lose him on waivers.

DEFENCE

Okay, we've been bad defensively the last couple games. Unbelievably so. And with all our new defencemen it was expected that they'd solve this issue. However, there's a couple of things we need to keep in mind.

#1: Not one member of our defence is playing with the same partner he played with last year. It takes time to gel and adjust.
#2: These new blueliners need to adapt to Ron Wilson's style. Actually, some of the old blueliners still need to adapt to Ron Wilson's style.
#3: Luke Schenn is an aggresive, intelligent, physical player but he's also still 20 years old.
#4: I still can't believe I gave Jamal Mayers some positive feedback.

To dish out some praise, I'm really happy with Mike Komisarek. Yeah, he's taken up some real estate in the penalty box but the majority of those were in an emotional game against his old team and the penalty against Washington was debatable. He's played hard, physically, and has shown a lot of leadership. He's got my vote for captain. I've also got to point out how much he's changed Tomas Kaberle's game. Kaberle looks patient, poised, and is back to playing cool, collected, and smart hockey. I forgot how much of an asset Kaberle is to our team. Ian White has played good hockey as well and I think it's well known now that he's the #5 D.

Beachemin has been GOD AWFUL. What is going on with him? He was above and beyond our best pointman in the pre-season but he just looks unbelievably rattled and it looks like it's rubbing off on Schenn. Yikes.

PENALTY KILL

One of the biggest things when Mike Komisarek takes a penalty is that we miss him killing it. The forwards have done alright (especially in the WSH game) but again, the blueliners have looked real bad. This needs to be adjusted. Something does.

Is anyone else a bit surprised by the lack of hard-nosed play from the Leafs? I was dying for someone to knock the face off of somebody in the first period of the caps game but it just didn't happen. Sigh.

Anyway, on a closing note, how good has that Mitchell/Wallin/Stempniak line been? Surprising stuff.

Hold on tight boys, it's going to be a rocky ride.

L&L