WARNING: IF YOU ARE A DIEHARD LEAF FAN, READING FURTHER MAY BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR HEALTH.
I'm not a bit Raycroft fan. I have nothing against him personally of course. It's just that you can't win consistently in the NHL with a goalie of his calibre. My view is backed up by numbers. His goals against average is 3.10 which ranks him 31st among NHL goalies. His save percentage which is less of a team thing and more or a goalie stat is even worse. It is .892 which ranks him 36th overall. You can't say he is playing in front of a weak team. The Leafs are slightly above .500 despite having a large number of their better forwards injured and most nights they play hard. And I don't accept the fact that their defense is weak. It is much better than last year's defence (no Khavanov, Berg or Klee) but the team is giving up more goals. Three defensemen have played in All Star games (Kaberle - 02, 07, McCabe - 04, Kubina - 04). Although they have 3 rookie defensemen, they were all star players as Juniors and Bell was the outstanding Junior Canadian defenseman in 03. In fact the entire defense is an overall +7 and the 3 rookies are +5.
So the forwards are better and the defense is better. The problem is in net.
12 years ago
