Burke’s blueprint involves protecting, not trading, Kaberle

Despite numerous trade rumors to the contrary, defenseman Tomas Kaberle will be suiting up for his eleventh NHL season in a Leafs uniform when training camp opens this fall.

The 31-year-old veteran blueliner was touted as arguably the most attractive commodity on the trade market, with puck-moving defensemen at a premium, and with Kaberle’s contract valued at a more than reasonable sum of $4.25 million annually.

Nevertheless, Leafs president general manager Brian Burke repeatedly stated this past summer that he would have to be “blown away” by any trade offer for Kaberle, and balked at a proposed swap involving Phil Kessel when the Leafs and Bruins could not agree as to which team should also a receive a draft pick in the exchange.

The phone line between Burke and Kaberle’s home in Kladno, Czech Republic remained silent between draft day on June 26 and August 15 – the brief window during which the no-trade clause in Kaberle’s contract was not in effect.

It appears that Burke’s blueprint for overhauling the team that finished with the fourth-worst record in the Eastern Conference involved protecting his power-play specialist on the blueline, rather than trading him.

Surrounding Kaberle with the likes of Mike Komisarek, Garnet Exelby, Francois Beauchemin and Colton Orr provides a much deeper layer of insurance than what existed as recently as two seasons ago. Leafs fans still recall, with indignation, the liberty that Cam Janssen bestowed upon Kaberle in a game between the Leafs and the New Jersey Devils. Janssen viciously slammed the Toronto defenseman into the boards, leaving him with a concussion.

Inexplicably, no player in a blue and white sweater came to Kaberle’s defense.

Rest assured that Burke’s newest additions will prevent a repeat of the incident at the Meadowlands.

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Earlier last week, former Team Canada World Junior hero Justin Pogge was dealt to the Anaheim Ducks for a conditional draft pick, ending an often-tumultuous tenure in Toronto.

Pogge spent three average seasons as goaltender for the AHL Toronto Marlies, and received the call to play between the pipes for the Leafs on seven occasions last season, posting a forgettable 1-4-1 record. The epitaph on the tombstone of Pogge’s Toronto career was written the day of the Marlies’ series-clinching loss to Manitoba in the opening round of this year’s playoffs, when he was assigned to the bench in a backup role after starting the first five games of the series.

With the off-season signing of backstop Jonas “The Monster” Gustavsson, Pogge was afforded the opportunity of a fresh start outside of The Big Smoke, where the lofty expectations of being the Leafs “goalie of the future” appeared to be more than he could handle.

“It’s a new situation. You kind of get into routines when you’re in the same place,” Pogge – an Alberta native – told the Calgary Herald. “I think just changing everything up is definitely a healthy move.”

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Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and will be blogging at TMLfans.ca throughout the NHL off-season.

Rat Tricks

Just seconds before Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke selected Nazem Kadri with Toronto’s first pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, he was greet by a score of boos and raspberries from the home contingent of Montreal – the locale of the event and the city that has served as the Leafs’ oldest historic rival.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that,” Burke later told reporters who asked for his opinion on the merciless jeers. “I will tell you this: the best hockey fans on the planet are not in Montreal, they’re in Toronto. When we host this event in a couple years and Montreal goes up to pick, this will seem like child’s play for the booing they will get in Toronto.”

The outspoken Leafs’ executive, never hesitant to voice his opinion, Burke has certainly made it clear to the media that – regardless of the issue – he exerts complete indifference to the posterior of the aforementioned rabid rodent.

Three days before the draft, Burke was questioned on his habitual strategy of building teams based on toughness and pugnacity, in contrast to the skill and finesse exhibited by the last two Stanley Cup champions, the Penguins and the Red Wings.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do in Pittsburgh or Detroit,” responded Burke. “There’s been four different Cup winners the last four years, and I got one of them (Anaheim, 2007) and it was a fighting team. We’re playing it that way regardless.”

Speaking to a group of scribes in April following the Leafs’ free agent signings of NCAA players Tyler Bozak and Christian Hanson, Burke opined that the location any player’s amateur background is a non-factor in making an offer sheet. “We intend to build this team with junior players, college players, European players. If they start playing hockey on Mars, we’ll draft players from Mars.

“I could give a rat’s ass where a player comes from as long as he can play here.”

While it appears that hockey fans should get used to Burke’s frequent references to the rodent’s rump, it’s only fitting that most recent instance of the sound bite occurred at the NHL Draft.

18-year-old prodigies such as John Tavares, Victor Hedman and Matt Duchene may not have had the opportunity to embark on their potential multi-million dollar careers at such a young age had it not been for the efforts of Ken “The Rat” Linseman over three decades ago,

A star junior player with the Kingston Canadiens, Linseman attempted to sign with the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA in 1977, only to be declined because he was two years younger than, what was at the time, the 20-year-old minimum age for draftees imposed by both the NHL and the WHA.

Undeterred, Linseman successfully obtained an injunction against the Bulls, eventually suiting up for the team for 71 games as a precursor to what would become a 13-year NHL career with Philadelphia, Boston and Edmonton, plus a two-game pit stop in Toronto.

Nicknamed “The Rat” because of a skating style in which he hunched forward, Linseman’s dogged determination revolutionized the draft, paving the way for players to become eligible to be selected at age eighteen. Future Hall-of-Famer Dale Hawerchuk had the distinction of being the first 18-year-old to be chosen with the top overall pick in 1981.

It was Linseman, Brian Propp, and current Flyers’ general manager Paul Holmgren who formed “The Rat Patrol” line for the Flyers in the early 80’s. They last played as a unit in 1982, four years before the debut of Philadelphia rookie Scott Mellanby.

A tenacious winger in his own right who lasted 20 years in the NHL, Mellanby unwittingly made his own rat-oriented contribution to hockey as a member of the Florida Panthers by whacking one of the four-legged creatures with his stick in the dressing room, prior to the team’s home opener in 1995-96. Mellanby went on to score two goals that night, prompting teammate John Vanbiesbrouck to dub his accomplishment as a “rat trick”.

The urban legend took a life its own as the Panthers made a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final that season, eventually being swept aside by the Colorado Avalanche. Florida fans littered the ice with plastic rats upon every Panthers goal, causing several game delays and overtime duty for the arena’s clean-up crew. These antics invoked a league-wide rule change to assess a minor penalty against any offending team for all future occurrences. Coincidentally, 1996 marked The Year of the Rat in the Chinese zodiac.

Mellanby’s services could have been used by Washington Capitals’ reporter Lisa Hillary, who was unpleasantly surprised by a large rat scurrying across the Verizon Center after Game 2 of the team’s playoff series against Pittsburgh this year. A visibly upset Hillary shrieked “Oh my God, a big rat just came by,” as she threw back to Comcast studio host Chick Hernandez who calmly replied “I thought Sean Avery left the building.”

Burke may not give “a rat’s ass” about a lot of things.

And Mellanby’s rodent following was a one-year wonder.

However, there’s no denying that Ken Linseman was as much a pioneer off the ice as he was an agitator on it. From Dale Hawerchuk to John Tavares to every player drafted as an 18-year-old, each of them is forever indebted to the man they nicknamed “The Rat”.

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Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and will be blogging at TMLfans.ca throughout the NHL off-season.

Hold NHL officials accountable by making them available to the media

For the everyday working man or woman, the last thing anyone would want to do after making a mistake on the job is to face a horde of hungry media demanding an explanation.

Fortunately, answering a bombardment of questions is not in the job description for most common folk.

Those involved in pro sports, however, understand that addressing the media – under both positive and negative circumstances – is as much as part of the handsomely-paid profession as the on-field, or on-ice action.

NHL players and coaches are held accountable for mistakes in part by virtue of their obligations for media availability following a game.

Why aren’t referees and linesmen held to the same standard?

It’s a shame that on-ice officials aren’t made available to speak to the media following the game. If they were, perhaps some insight would be provided regarding many of the phantom calls and non-calls that were evident throughout the playoffs, especially in the final series.

The seven-game matchup lived up to its showcase billing, with Sidney Crosby, Nicklas Lidstrom and two of the regular-season’s Hart Trophy nominees Evgeni Malkin and Pavel Datsyuk engaging in a showdown for the ages. Thus it’s rather unfortunate that the series featuring the best players did not feature the best officials.

More frustrating for the teams, and the viewing public who pay hard-earned dollars for their tickets, is that the reasoning behind the minds of the men in zebra stripes remains shrouded in mystery. This is because the league unnecessarily grants the officials a blanket of security in not mandating them to speak to reporters.

Wouldn’t it have been interesting to hear why both referees Bill McCreary and Marc Joanette missed Marian Hossa’s hook on Pascal Dupuis in Game Two that led to Valtteri Filppula’s game winning goal for Detroit? It couldn’t have been hard to miss, given that the play was Hossa’s only impact on the series.

Why shouldn’t Paul Devorski or Dennis LaRue have to justify why Detroit’s Jonathan Ericsson was whistled for interference midway through the third period of Game Three, giving Pittsburgh a power-play on which Sergei Gonchar scored the game-winner? While granted that Ericcson’s miscue was a penalty under the obstruction rules, the inconsistency in blowing the whistle in that instance while several similar fouls went uncalled over the first 45 minutes of the game is inexcusable.

And only linesman Pierre Racicot knows what he was thinking when in Game Seven, he missed the fact that Penguins defenceman Brooks Orpik dumped the puck from his own side of the centre line. With Detroit blueliner Brad Stuart retrieving the puck in the Wings end, the play should have been called on the icing against the Penguins. Instead, Stuart turned the puck over, leading to the game’s monumental first goal by Maxime Talbot.

While the Pittsburgh Penguins certainly deserve their due credit for winning Game 7 and the Stanley Cup in spite of Racicot’s error, viewers of the game’s biggest spectacle at least deserve to learn what happened from the linesman’s perspective.

Stuart, who had a dreadful outing in being on the ice for both Pittsburgh goals, most certainly did not look forward to being in front of the cameras after the defeat. But, he faced the music.

Two years ago, it was Chris Phillips of the Ottawa Senators dejectedly talking to a large scrum after the Cup-clinching loss to Anaheim during which he accidentally put the puck in his own net. “Now I know how Steve Smith feels” was the sound bite.

If a player must be subject to the gut-wrenching moments of explaining his mistakes, then so must be the officials.

Not for the sake of further berating, but simply to be accountable.

In 1980, linesman Leon Stickle missed an offside call in Game Six of the final between the Islanders and Flyers, the game in which Bob Nystrom would score in overtime to clinch New York its first of four consecutive Stanley Cups.

On the Islanders second goal, Clark Gillies passed the puck behind him to Butch Goring, who received the puck on the other side of the blueline, putting the Islanders offside. Stickle incorrectly waved the play ‘safe’, leading to a goal by Duane Sutter.

“I guess I blew it,” Stickle said after seeing a replay days later. “The puck came back across the line. Maybe there was black tape on Goring’s stick and it confused me. Or maybe I was too close to the play. I just missed it.”

The explanation didn’t reverse the outcome of the play, or the game.

But it’s an example of the type of explanation that the coaches, the players, and the fans deserve.

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Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and will be blogging at TMLfans.ca throughout the NHL off-season.

Gilbert should be remembered for putting his team first

Greg Gilbert’s departure from the Toronto Marlies comes as disappointment to many, including yours truly, who had the pleasure of getting to know him during his three-year tenure as head coach of the Leafs’ AHL affiliate.

Maple Leafs president and GM Brian Burke, announced this past week that Gilbert’s contract will not be renewed; a move likely engineered not as an indictment of Gilbert’s performance behind the bench, but rather as a result of Burke’s preference to retain his own staff – a trait common to many NHL general managers.

Here’s hoping that Gilbert’s legacy as Marlies’ bench boss will be remembered for more than what appears to be an inextricable link between him and goaltender Justin Pogge. Gilbert’s decision to start veteran Scott Clemmensen over Pogge in the 2008 Calder Cup playoffs raised more than a few eyebrows among supporters of the so-called “Leafs goalie of the future”. For an encore, Gilbert pinned Pogge to the bench in the series-clinching loss to Manitoba in this year’s post-season. Pogge’s appearance in the lineup card as the backup goalie may represent his final insertion for a game as roster player within the Leafs’ organization.

To fairly judge Gilbert’s performance is to appreciate that his decisions were based on what he felt was best for the team as a whole, and not simply for the development of one player. Looking at a player like John Mitchell, who gained invaluable experience during their ’08 run to the AHL’s final four as one of the Marlies’ top scorers, it was refreshing to see him earn a job with the top club during Leafs’ training camp.

A closer examination of that exciting drive for the Calder Cup shows that Gilbert was able to get the most out of his foot soldiers when it mattered, particularly in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final against Syracuse, a series in which the Marlies trailed three games to one at one point. After top-line forward Bates Battaglia scored in overtime in Game Five, the series shifted back to Syracuse, where Peter (who?) Tsimikalis scored to spark a Marlies comeback. The Marlies advanced to the next round on the strength of two goals from fourth-liner Brent Aubin in Game #7. Those who watched the broadcast from Ricoh Coliseum will recall that special teams, particularly the penalty kill, were the key to victory for the Marlies. It was Gilbert who had converted Chris Harrington – one of the team’s best penalty killers along with Battaglia and Kris Newbury – from defence to forward in the regular season, and for those entire playoffs.

Justin who? This was about a team, not one guy. Gilbert deserves all the credit in the world for his resolve in the wake of a decision that was unpopular.

Never one to play favourites, Gilbert had no trouble suspending curfew-breaker Patrick O’Sullivan during his junior days with the Mississauga Ice Dogs, and clashed with Marc Savard when the player wouldn’t buy into the coach’s system with the Calgary Flames. One of the Marlies’ workhorse defencemen, Derrick Walser, found himself watching from the bench during the ’08 Calder Cup run after feeling the wrath of his coach.

Pogge may never develop into an NHL-caliber goalie; but if he does, a lot of fingers will be pointed squarely at Gilbert for perceived mismanagement of an asset.

An assessment of that nature would be unfair. If a guy can take your team to the final four and lose to the eventual champions (Chicago), he did more than a few things right.

Good luck, Gibby.

***

Should the Red Wings successfully clinch their fifth title in 12 years, Chris Chelios will not be eligible to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup for a fourth time, unless he is inserted for either Game Six or Game Seven if necessary . While Detroit would be free to distribute rings to any player – including Chelios – at their discretion, NHL by-laws state that in order for a player’s name to appear on the Cup, a player must be a member of the winning team at the trade deadline and either 1) have played 40 games in the regular season, or 2) played one game in the Stanley Cup Final.

Chelios played only 28 regular season games with the Red Wings this year, and has not appeared in the playoffs since Game #4 of the semi-finals against Anaheim.

The winning team can petition the Commissioner to make an exception to the rule – in fact it happened successfully several years ago, involving an ex-Leaf. Do you remember who? See the answer at the end of this note.

***

Hats off to Joe Nieuwendyk, who accepted the GM post in Dallas, where he won his second of 3 career Stanley Cups in 1999, taking Conn Smythe Trophy honours along the way. Coincidentally, the official announcement by the Stars of his acceptance of the job came on the same day that Jacques Martin was named coach of the Montreal Canadiens.

Nieuwendyk played for Martin for just over a season after he and close friend Gary Roberts left the Leafs to sign with the Florida Panthers after the lockout. In Salt Lake City in 2002, Nieuwendyk posed for photos holding his daughter Tyra as Team Canada ended its 50-year Olympic gold-medal drought with Martin behind the bench as one of Pat Quinn’s assistant coaches.

But this author will forever remember that it was Nieuwendyk who somewhat indirectly cost Martin his job as head coach of the Ottawa Senators. When, the Leafs and Senators dueled in Game #7 of the 2004 Eastern Conference Final, Ottawa was aiming to end a streak of three straight playoff exits suffered at the hands of the Leafs in four years.

Unfortunately for Sens fans, goalie Patrick Lalime had a major obstacle that night at Air Canada Centre – PUCKS! Nieuwendyk scored a pair of identical soft goals in the first period, leading the way for a 4-1 Leafs victory in the most recent playoff series that Toronto has won to date. Rightly, or wrongly, Martin took the fall for his squad and was relieved of his duties shortly thereafter.

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Trivia answer: When the NY Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, they successfully petitioned for Ed Olczyk to get his name on the Cup, even though he had only played for 37 games in the regular season and did not play in the final. Olczyk played for three full seasons for the Leafs between 1986 and 1990, and is currently a broadcaster for the team that drafted him, the Chicago Blackhawks.

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Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and will be blogging at TMLfans.ca throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.

42 years of waiting

The Leafs won their most recent Stanley Cup 42 years ago today, on May 2, 1967.

As Toronto fans continue to mourn over the length of the perpetual championship drought, here are some reflections:

• Goaltender Curtis Joseph was three days old on the day of the Leafs’ last Cup. The Keswick, Ontario native was born on April 29 of that year, the same day as Game Five of the final, won by the Leafs in Montreal by a score of 4-1.
• The Detroit Red Wings endured a 42-year Cup drought from 1955-1997. Since then, Motown has claimed hockey’s Holy Grail four times, and are in contention for another Cup this spring.
• 42 is the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything, according to the late British sci-fi author Douglas Adams. Yet even he had no answer for the Leafs’ woes.
• Three Leafs have worn the sweater number 42: Kevyn Adams, David Cooper, and (lo and behold) Kyle Wellwood, who currently has four points in 5 playoff games so far, for the Vancouver Canucks.
• The #1 song on Billboard’ top 100 on May 2, 1967 was “Somethin’ Stupid” by Nancy and Frank Sinatra. (And, it just gets easier for Leafs fans to be a target of critics).
• The only Leaf to wear the sweater number 67 was defenceman Robert Svehla, who played all 82 games for the team in 2002-03. “He took a fair bit of heat for picking the number,” former assistant GM Bill Watters told writer Scott Morrison in the book By The Numbers. “People thought he was poking fun at the last Cup year, but I don’t think he was. He wasn’t that kind of kid. I think he was simply acknowledging it.”
• The Prime Minister of Canada on May 2, 1967 was Lester B. Pearson. Canada has seen eight Prime Ministers since then: Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper.
• The President of the United States on the date of the Leafs last Stanley Cup was Lyndon B. Johnson. The U.S. has seen eight presidents since then: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
• The Leafs have not only failed to win the Cup in any of the past forty-two seasons, but have not been back to the Stanley Cup Final in all that time. Since then, the NHL has expanded from six to thirty teams. Of the 30 current NHL teams, the Leafs share the Cup Final drought with just six other clubs: Atlanta, Columbus, Minnesota, Nashville, Phoenix/Winnipeg and San Jose.
• The Leafs top line in the 1967 playoffs of Jim Pappin (15 points), Pete Stemkowski (12 points) and Bob Pulford (11 points) led the entire league in post-season scoring (Pulford was actually tied with Jean Beliveau with 11 points). No single forward line led the entire NHL playoffs in scoring again until 2007, when Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson each had 22 points as the Ottawa Senators lost to Anaheim in the Stanley Cup Final.
• The 1967 Maple Leafs are currently the first team with their names engraved on the second ring of the Stanley Cup. At the end of the 2016-17 season, the top (first) ring will be retired with each of the four lower ring moved up one spot to make room for a new fifth ring. Each ring has room to list 13 teams. So, if the Leafs don’t win the Stanley Cup before the end of the 2029-2030 season when the next ring is retired, then the most famous trophy in hockey will have no representation of the Maple Leafs on it.

20 years to go, guys. The clock is ticking.

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Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and will be blogging at TMLfans.ca throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.