Quote:
Originally Posted by Burning Down
So, how is it?  |
Well, unlike Leaf fans who know nothing and watch nothing, I realise that the status of the franchise right now is that they are the joke of the league. We've made some bad choices, most of them I never agreed with, and have played some terrible hockey.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfarer
Welcome aboard. 
What've you thought of Burke's work over the summer so far? Seems like we'll almost undoubtedly be running into more penalty trouble with guys like Exelby and Orr, but on the upside, we've also added a number of reputable penalty killers, not to mention the over-and-above toughness should take some of the pressure off of the less physical players like Grabovski and Kaberle (I thought one of our biggest problems last year was that bigger guys like Laraque could almost effortlessly ragdoll just about anybody on our team), and particularly off of Schenn (was impressive, but a little unreasonable that he was the one who had to drop the gloves a number of times last year).
I s'pose we could sneak into the playoffs, but it'll surely be a struggle. Our offensive lines don't look particularly strong on paper, though they didn't look all that great last year either and I believe we ended up tenth in the league in scoring, so it's rly hard to say. I do have a feeling Kulemin is going to have a good year, for some reason. |
I'm pretty excited about whats happened and pretty optimistic about what could happen this season. Ever since Burke has stepped in I'm behind the team every step. Even last season was one of our more exciting seasons in the past few years. I loved watching guys explode into the league with great seasons like Hagman, Mitchell, Kulemin and most of all, my favorite, Mikhail Grabovski. I just hope these guys can have as good a season as last.
This off-season has blown me away. If you would of asked me a year ago who I'd realisticly come to Toronto I would of mentioned Francois Beauchemin. This guy stood out to me when he played in Anaheim. I hated Komisarek in Montreal, but the minute I heard he had signed in TO, I suddenly liked him. Haha, I guess thats how it goes.
One thing we need above all, is a pure goal scorer but its rare to pick one up these days. So we'll rely on our D-men, hopefully between them and our brand new trio of goalies (I'm hoping Toskala returns as a brand new goalie, if you understand me) and hope they can score aswell. Its all we really got.
Overall, I can't wait. I'm very excited about hopefully finding a franchise goalie in Jonas Gustavsson and watching our other young guys like Schenn/Bozak/Hanson/Grabovski/etc grow and put up some numbers.