Blue And White Beat: Leafs aren’t waffling
A puzzling form of protest was exhibited by a patron at Air Canada Centre at the end of Thursday’s loss by the Maple Leafs at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers.
A disgusted fan tossed waffles onto the ice, obviously displeased at shelling out hard-earned money only to see the home side produce a lacklustre effort in a 4-1 defeat.
Who brings waffles to the game?” chuckled Flyers defenceman Chris Pronger.
Yet as confusing as the exhibition of displeasure was, the Leafs on-ice execution over the past five games has been equally as mind-boggling, leaving viewers left to wonder which incarnation of the team will show up on a given night.
The loss to Philadelphia was preceded by a pathetic effort in Pittsburgh after which head coach Ron Wilson fumed that the turning point of the game was “when they dropped the puck.”
And yet the two games against Pennsylvania opponents followed a pair of resilient comeback wins.
On December 4 against Boston, Leafs agitator Colby Armstrong returned to the lineup after missing 16 games with a finger injury, pestering long-time Toronto nemesis Zdeno Chara. A power-play marker by Kris Versteeg in the final minute of regulation sent the game into overtime, setting the stage for Phil Kessel’s eventual shootout winner against his former team.
Two nights later, Toronto staged a third-period comeback with three consecutive goals to erase a 4-1 deficit against Washington. Once again, the shootout provided the vehicle for the Leafs to steal two points, this time off a ‘spin-e-rama’ move courtesy of Mikhail Grabovski.
A win Saturday night over division rival Montreal elevated the Leafs record to 3-2-0 in the last five outings. With Toronto stacked against the current top five seeds in the Eastern Conference over that span, many predicted that Toronto would flounder to the point of changing team personnel involving players or the coach, if not both.
“We had a really good week,” said Wilson, the lightning rod of the criticism aimed at the club that still sits third-last in the NHL standings, despite the recent success. “On Sunday I was going to do my Christmas shopping, that’s all I was thinking about. I was either going as Santa Claus or Scrooge.”
The team prepares to embark on their annual road trip to western Canada with an opportunity to overtake each of the two Alberta-based teams in the overall standings. On Tuesday the Leafs will be looking to avenge an embarrassing home ice loss to Edmonton two weeks ago. Then on Thursday the spotlight will be on captain Dion Phaneuf in his return to Calgary since being dealt by the Flames. The trip concludes on the weekend against Vancouver.
The challenge for the squad is to keep its composure when trailing. “We keep doing it to ourselves,” said Phaneuf of the team’s propensity to fall behind by wide margins. “Until we learn to not spot those leads, it’s pretty tough to win games.”
Perhaps the message that the projectile-tossing fan wished to communicate is for the Leafs to produce a 60-minute effort on any given night, instead of, well – waffling.
Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and is a regular columnist at TMLfans.ca
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