National Post (National Edition)
COMING OUT
Leafs’ Kostka feeling at home on Toronto blue line.
TORONTO • Norris Trophy winners apparently have nothing on Mike Kostka.
At least, that is what it looks like five games into the season, with the Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman having averaged 25 minutes and 44 seconds of ice time per game. That is slightly more than Boston’s Zdeno Chara, Chicago’s Duncan Keith and all but 12 other players in the league.
“That’s funny,” Kostka said of the stat.
Funny, yes. But it is also a bit concerning.
This is not meant as a slight on Kostka. It is just that as a career minor-leaguer who made his NHL debut less than two weeks ago, he probably should not be logging more than 31½ minutes in a game, as he did in a 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday.
On a good team, he probably should not even be playing 20 minutes. But because the Leafs lack defensive depth, Kostka and Dion Phaneuf, who ranks second in the NHL at 28:58 per game, have been the team’s most-used — and some would say over-used — pairing so far.
“Thrown right into the deep end,” Kostka said with a laugh. “I accept all the challenges. If you want to play in this league, that’s the way it is.”
It is, however, a workload that may be catching up to the defence pairing.
Both Kostka and Phaneuf said they have not been fatigued by the increased minutes they have been playing against the other teams’ top lines. But consecutive lategame collapses against the New York Islanders last Thursday and the New York Rangers on Saturday, in which the Leafs allowed five straight goals, seem to suggest otherwise.
“As a player, you go out when you’re told to go out,” Phaneuf said. “You don’t ask questions. Sometimes you play a little bit more and sometimes you don’t play as much but as a player you focus on, when you do go out there that you do your job.”
Phaneuf and Kostka were on the ice Saturday whenever there was a defensive zone faceoff or when the Rangers’ big line of Brad Richards, Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik jumped over the boards.
For a while, it worked. After two periods, the Rangers were held to just one goal. But nursing a 2-1 lead into the third, Phaneuf and Kostka could not hold off the attack any longer. Each finished the game with a minus-4 rating.
“I think that the one thing we were guilty of as coaches is we played them too much,” head coach Randy Carlyle said. “I don’t think that Dion’s ready to play 30-plus minutes and he played 32 in New York. So we have to take responsibility for that as a coaching staff.”
When asked how much Phaneuf should be playing, Carlyle said somewhere in the 20- to 25-minute range. The question then becomes who takes up the other minutes?
Carl Gunnarsson was Phaneuf ’s partner and second on the team in ice time last season, but has dealing with some aches and pains that Carlyle said are limiting his minutes. Beyond that, there is a group of players (John-Michael Liles, Mike Komisarek, Jake Gardiner, Cody Franson, Mark Fraser, Korbinian Holzer) who have yet to earn the coach’s trust.
“You got to have the confidence that they can go out and do it, but the coach has to have the confidence to put them in the situations that they’re going to have success in,” Carlyle said. “I’m not different than any other coach. When you trust people you put them in situations where they get to play more.”
In a full season, maybe Carlyle would have a bit more patience and be willing to experiment and live with players’ mistakes. But with the season so condensed and the games so heavily weighted, he is coaching as though it is the 2006-07 Stanley Cup final and he is relying on Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger for 30 minutes every night.
In Toronto, he simply does not have that luxury.
If the Leafs are going to effectively shut down teams, it will have to be by committee.