It surprises me that I haven’t blogged about hockey this season yet. Last year, I was in a hockey pool, blogged my playoff predictions and outlined a plan for the Leafs to get back in contention. This year, I’m also in a hockey pool with the usual suspects, but after leading for the first part of the season, I’ve slowly drifted back into the pack. It’s difficult to be enthusiastic about it when you’re not winning, so I haven’t been keeping up with it.

I think what screwed me over were my goalies. I ended up with Gerber, Roloson, and whoever was the LA Kings starting goaltender. Gerber was signed in the off season and penciled in as the starter for Ottawa. After being shelled in the start of the season (remember Ottawa started off really slow), Ray Emery replaced him as a starter, and I had to live with his exorbinant GAA. Roloson carried the Oilers to the Stanley Cup final the year before, and I kind of knew it was a one-shot thing. I was right of course, and he is back to his normal (mediocre) self. And my last goalie? well the LA Kings have had something like 9 different goalies this year.

The Leafs started the season well and I thought they had some promise under Maurice, but their usual inconsistent effort arrived come Christmas, and well this season’s just like the last one. I didn’t have that much of a problem with JFJ, but his actions recently have made me lose confidence in him:

• Raycroft has been a bust. We don’t need (but of course, would like) a top-flight goalie, but we need a consistent goalie! If you know you’re goalie is going to let in 4 goals a game, at least you will stack your offense (hello Pittsburgh).
• I think signing Tucker was a mistake. There are a whole slew of reasons why, too many to recount, which is a reason in itself. I think he’s the most valuable now, as trade bait; but of course we signed him to a contract that reflects his current value.
• While it’s true that we have a lot of young defencemen, why trade your prospects away for a guy that the Leafs have let go twice (Perrault). There’s a reason why we didn’t resign him, don’t let an All-Star appearance fool you, unless you’re initials are JFJ.
• He should be dumping assests (Tucker) instead of adding spare parts (Perrault). It’s likely we will miss the playoffs, and even if we do make it, we won’t get far. And it’s not like we need to make the playoffs to keep our fans from leaving (and watching baseball? yeah right).

So a general bad taste in my mouth has left me not paying attention to hockey and thus not blogging it.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: complaining, hockey