Leafs do little against Blues
Another odious effort, another lopsided loss for blue and white
Useless things:
Teats on a bull.
Screen door on a submarine.
One-legged man at an arse-kicking competition.
Condom machine in the Vatican.
Tunnel to nowhere on the York U campus.
And a goal-scoring sniper with a jam up his barrel.
That would be, in the Maple Leaf ’hood, Phil Kessel — the monosyllabic near-mute that roared this past week.
Pity the zing was all in his lips. Been a long time since K-Tell-Off has made any other kind of noise ’round the rinks.
Against St. Louis Blues at the Air Canada Centre Saturday night, not a peep, not an oooph, not a yoohoo as the Leafs sank out of sight 6-1, leaving scarcely an air bubble breaking the surface.
“They beat us all over the ice,” said a clearly displeased coach Peter Horachek afterwards. “They beat us from the beginning to the end. They beat us all over the place.”
Toronto didn’t even get a shot on Brian Elliott until 10:58 of the first period, off the stick of Richard Panik.
Didn’t help that Jonathan Bernier had yet another leaky evening between the uprights, chased to the bench on a trio of goals, two of which should never have found the back of the net. When James Reimer’s name was announced over the pubic address system, entering the game to start the second, a huge cheer went up from the otherwise benumbed crowd. They weren’t cheering at the final buzzer.
Doomed season notwithstanding, the team-wide disengagement from nearly all quarters was jaw-dropping. Left Horachek grinding his molars.
“There was no effort. We didn’t win any of the 50-50 battles, we weren’t competing hard enough, we didn’t forecheck, we didn’t keep the puck in the offensive zone. Playing behind and chasing games? You’ve got to play with more pride. There were small little push-backs but not enough.”
No effort. Isn’t that the worst thing a coach can say about a team?
Horachek: “Yup.” And: “There are no real excuses for it. So I’m not going to make any. That’s unacceptable to me. I’m not happy about it.”
Back to the invisible Kessel — left off the power play the third, along with the rest of his line because Horachek could no longer bear to watch. Pudge will be Toronto’s cross to carry for years to come, which would be fine if he could just find his scoring mojo again. Where is that darn thing? Under the ping-pong table? Left behind at McDonald’s? Beneath his signature watch hat? Confiscated at the border?
No. 81 wasn’t wildly off the mark in his extraordinary outburst on behalf of Dion Phaneuf, although the aim was wide. If Kessel wanted to unload on the bitchin’ brigade, he should have targeted the ex-Leafs who’ve found a second career as radio and TV pundits because they’re the most venomous bashers of the bunch, their insider analysis far more scathing than any critical salvo launched by a beat reporter or columnist. And on the evidence, they’re right.
Of the odious tweeters and bloggers nothing more need be said. But it’s still unclear what exactly got Kessel so hot. He ain’t saying. We’re expected to read his mind, which oftentimes seems an empty cavity.
Read the score sheet from Saturday night instead: 0 goals, 0 assists, 3 shots, minus-2.
Kessel needs to get off the soapbox and into the boxscore, where he speaks the lingo more eloquently, if not erelong.
It was actually impressive that the terse Wisconsinite manned up for a teammate, revealing as it did a spark of passion on what has been an otherwise apathetic and stupefied Leaf team, ’lo these past few months. So score it an end-to-end rushing assist, which would give Kessel 29 on the year, to go along with 23 goals, nowhere near marksman territory and far off the deft winger’s usual pace. Barring a screeching offensive U-turn, Kessel will set a new low output record this season, his previous nadir mark for an 82-game schedule with Toronto the 30 tallied in 2009-10. From these cold, dead hands . . . That Kessel nevertheless still tops Toronto on the points tote-board speaks volumes about the cratering performance of a club that led the league in scoring on Jan. 1. But that was a hockey lifetime ago.
In the dismal present, most of the Leaf big guns fire only blanks and Kessel, specifically, has on too many recent nights barely registered even a handful of shots on goal, though it must be added the guy has been simultaneously seized by a dreadful run of rotten luck. Is there any other player whose streaks and slumps are so gobsmackingly flip-flop?
On this evening, the outcome — if not the lineup — was wearily familiar and predictable.
This was not the team that left town a week ago, on the eve of the trade deadline, if yet too same-old in roster composition than many had hoped. The adjustments were marginal but of course GM Dave Nonis swung his significant deals just prior to TD-Day. Olli Jokinen — we hardly knew ye — returned to these parts as a playoff-bound Bluein exchange for Joakim Lindstrom and a sixth- round draft pick. Other intra-club connections include Eric Brewer, a Toronto deadline acquisition from Anaheim, who had five seasons in St. Louis and was their captain; Roman Polak, eight years a Blue before landing here last summer, in a swap for Carl Gunnarsson; and (sigh) Alexander Steen.
Polak had dinner with St. Louis captain David Backes Friday. In NHL days of yore, that would have been unthinkable. Now it’s all union brotherhood and see-you-whenthe-puck-drops bro.
A fairly dull and to that point scoreless first period was enlivened when Zach Sill, another newbie Leaf, tagged Steve Ott with an awesome right-left combination and uppercut to the bugle. Had any boxing training, Zach? “No. I got an older brother.”
Yet the Leafs seemed to draw no energy from Sill’s troubles.
Just after a power play opportunity trickled away, the Leaf defenders collapsed badly towards their own net, allowing Jaden Schwartz to streak down the right lane. Young Schwartz — captain of Team Canada at the 2012 world juniors — sold the pass nicely as he charged into the zone, then snapped one off the far post.
A couple of minutes later, it was T.J. Oshie, cutting right to left as Morgan Rielly backed in on Bernier, and Steen dishing off the pass, wrister under the crossbar.
Just 14.6 seconds left, another defensive breakdown, and almost exactly a replay of Schwartz’s goal, this time hotshot 23-year-old and St. Louis goal-leader Vladimir Tarasenko snapping it off the far post for his 32nd of the season.
A brief grace note for Toronto was the hammering bodycheck Phaneuf laid on Oshie at the boards, kind of bone-rattler rarely seen anymore and perfectly clean, though Phaneuf’s counter-C, Backes, (rightly) jumped in to avenge his teammate. But shortly afterwards, the Leafs dropped to new depths of ignominy, surrendering their league-leading 10th shorty, Chris Butler making it 4-0. Paul Stastny dipsy-doodled through three Leafs on a power play to give the Blues a 5-0 lead.
David Booth, on a lovely feed from Jake Gardiner, denied Elliott a shutout at 2:59 of the third, his second in back-to-back games, after 31 games on the schneid. The 6-1 touchdown was credited to Backes but actually went in off Polak’s skate.
One final dis-grace note: The club invited some 1,000 minor league players to watch the morning skate Saturday. Nice gesture for the wideeyed guests. But it was an optional skate and only 11 players showed up; none of the alleged high-wattage Leafs.
No James van Riemsdyk. No Joffrey Lupul. No Tyler Bozak. And no Phil Kessel. Rather like Saturday night.