Commander Clueless

Hey, leave Hitchpenis alone. He's doing a good job there in St. Louis. He might be coasting a bit, but the Blues can afford it at this point. I doubt you'll see any of that come playoff time. They may have some trouble scoring, but we'll see. Should be fun to watch.

From "young team with promise" to "complete and utter embarassment...again" in less than a month. Only in Leafland. Screw it, I'm becoming a fairweather fan. Now if only there was some fair weather....... Actually, rumour out of Toronto has it the Leafs are folding out of sheer embarassment and relocating to Seattle this offseason. Glad that's finally over with. Praise Bettman!

Yep, and it will. 3-4 years down the road after sucking for a while, if the past is any indication. You take that back. You take that back right now. I'ma go throw up.

Indeed. Blatant headshot.

Haha. To be fair, the ref backhanded him pretty good. But really, I'm not bashing SidCroz. He's phenomenal. But that's funny right there.

@J0e Th0rnton Sadly, the stuff you mentioned was BEFORE the "rebuild". The one that Burke swore wouldn't take 5 years. The one that involved trading a 2nd overall, a 9th overall, and some guy with a cool name for Kessel (who is great by the way, but that's still steep for a team dwelling in the basement). Now, a decade later, we seem to be roughly back to where we started. Fighting for 9th. At least when they made the Nolan, Wesley, and Leetch trades, they were in the playoff discussion. Sacrificing the future in a major way. Think Bowman still wants the job? I'm all for it. Although to be fair, I was all for it back then to. But MLSE hadn't quite had enough screaming yet. And as for Detroit, they are a bunch of friggin' hackers and everyone knows it, but no one wants to say anything because Illitch controls pizza. And pizza is power. Pizza power.

Burn the witch! No, but seriously. Congratulations. Now if he could only get the diving out of his game, he'd be set.

@Podein25 Yeah I don't know if I'd go that far, but something needs to change. Leafs have some good players, but the team structure (or maybe style, I don't know) is just off. Or something. I don't think any rational Leafs fan ever thought we were cup contenders, but we went from a post lockout scramble to make the playoffs to a full fledged rebuild to an epic collapse under Wilson. Then we finally, FINALLY made the playoffs in a shortened season and had an epic collapse in game 7. "But it's okay!" we said. "We're finally seeing progress!". Sadly, almost a decade after this whole debacle began, and where are we? Back to fighting for 9th place. At least there's youth on the team now, I guess. It's a start. @OccamsRazor Leafs were kind of in an awkward position with Rielly, from what I read. They thought he wouldn't benefit from another season in the WHL and, while maybe not completely ready for the NHL, he has been quite good for the Leafs. Not amazing, but good with flashes of brilliance. The quote on why Schenn stuck around was more along the lines of "because our defense was terrible". So yeah, bit different of a situation I guess. Plus they drafted Schenn in part for his highly touted "NHL readiness", which I think most people look back on as untrue.

@J0e Th0rnton While I'm happy that your workdays are more enjoyable, I can't say I'd take it over the Leafs winning. No offense. As unbearable as the fanbase can be at times, it still hurts. Also, you sir are a cunning bastard.

With the way they are playing right now, I'm not sure I want them to make it. It's painful to watch. I don't know about "full-blown rebuild" considering they just barely finished the last one (not even sure it's done yet), but we'll see. @jammer2 Their lack of identity started earlier this year. No idea why it happened, but it did. Carlyle may have lost the room. Not sure how many coaches they need to go through.

I like how Avery still thinks himself king of the world. Nothing gets him down, apparently. Clearly the greatest man that has ever lived. I say we build a statue in his honour. And then nuke it.

Going to be a fun race I think. Except for Toronto. The Leafs are <insert rudest possible farting noise here>. Burke's comments about trucks going off cliffs seems appropriate here.

They've imploded. Again. It's ridiculous. I don't even know if Bernier could right the ship right now. He's been awesome this year so he might be able to, but they are playing like headless chickens. This team is playing like Ron Wilson is back at the helm. The players are frustrated too. It seems they do, in fact, suck again.

@ruxpin If we're talking recent disappointments, perhaps. But to be honest, in the list of recent disappointments, JVR is near the bottom of the list that includes most of the team.

@yave1964 True, but Franson's disappointment comes from his complete lack of ability to play even strength this year. Last year he looked like he might be rounding out into a very good top 4 guy.

Can we list Toronto's entire team for the past month or so? If not, Clarkson is the best choice. Honourable mention to Franson after his stellar year last year.

Sadly, my theory that the Leafs are toast this year seems to be coming true.

I would assume so. Well that certainly didn't help, but I think he lost something well before that. Something about losing the starter job seemed to throw him off. Mind you, he didn't get a game in for a good while.

I thought they would tighten up too, and that Carlyle would never allow them to continue down this path of pond hockey. But he has. I don't understand what's happening, but it's not pretty. If he's lost the room, he needs to be replaced. Reimer's a good goalie I think, but he has been brutal lately. He's just lost his will to compete in Toronto...or something. It's crazy. Not that his team has been helping him out, but the soft goals are backbreakers.

True, but when you are a team (Leafs) that can't play defense to save their lives, this is never a good idea.

As a Leafs fan I have to agree with this. Yave is right that Carlyle gave them an identity, but you are also right that this year they lost it. Completely. They are no longer a team that is hard to play against, they are a team that rides Kessel and Bernier and refuses to play defense. Such a contrast from last year and I don't know what happened. I don't think it's time to rid ourselves of Randy yet, but he needs to get this 18-wheeler back on track or it's going straight off the cliff again.

As the Leafs plummet from 2nd in the division to the comfy, warm, familiar, gaping maw that is the playoff "bubble" with a mere 3 game losing streak, I think it's time to resurrect this thread once again. The question becomes, do we in fact suck again? Or will they make a comeback? It almost seems like their defensive crapiness is starting to catch up with them and it's scary. I guess without Bernier to bail them out, things are looking grim. Nothing against Reimer who has been quite good, but their playoff chances are getting frighteningly worse. Thoughts? Observations? Suggestions for Carlyle? Snide remarks?

Sure thing. Kennedy assassination was staged, as he is currently hanging out in Area 51 with Elvis. Area 51 itself is actually a retirement home, but is utilized by the government to distract people from the true alien landing site - San Francisco. Funnily enough, the chicken and the egg thing is much closer than people think, but the truth is chicken because the first chicken to step foot on this planet in 3013 B.C. from the Great Poultry Mothership was pregnant and went in butt first. Chicken wins, but just by the tail feathers. But in the end, all of this adds up to the Penguins being a very good, if somewhat unpredictable team. I personally think it's time to change coaches up, not necessarily because Bylsma is bad, but because it's just time to shake things up. This is all assuming, of course, that they don't win the cup this year. Which they very well could.

No, no. I just mean I disagree that there is no reason why players would place hands on each other except to fight, because it happens. Again, I don't think Kessel is innocent there, but he is clearly not interested in fighting. I have no respect for Scott attempting a fight there where Kessel had no interest, and had (up to that point) thrown no cheap shots or anything that would deserve him needing to "answer the bell" so to speak. On the subject of this thread, that's one of types of fights that I don't like in the game today, and I don't like it regardless of what team or star player it happens to. John Scott has no business dropping the gloves on Kessel, the same way he would have no business dropping the gloves on Claude Giroux or Pavel Datsyuk or Thomas Vanek, etc. And again, when I use the word "jumped" I don't mean Kessel was just plodding along happily and was ambushed, I mean Scott involved him in a fight he had no desire to participate in. I just don't know a better word for it. I enjoy the bench clearing brawls as well. They may not end up about hockey, but they are brought on because of high emotions in a hockey game. It's also entertaining. Even "staged" fights can be entertaining to watch to a certain extent, but I don't like how they tend to interrupt the game.

There are MORE reasons to hate Crosby?? Awesome, I'm in.