It's happening again! Each year the Leafs go into a nose dive in mid-winter to the point where making the playoffs is mathematically possible but virtually impossible. Once they reach that point, the pressure to win disappears and suddenly the wins start to come. Of course, they finish just out of the playoffs but everyone is optimistic about next year because of their strong finish.
This past week the Leafs looked liked contenders (if you can ignore the 8-0 embarrassment against the Panthers) by beating Ottawa, Montreal and Detroit. Seems very impressive except that the Leafs will once again not make the playoffs so these games are meaningless. Suddenly, key players (eg., Tucker and Blake) who have done nothing all season, are scoring again so that by the end of the schedule they statistically will appear to have had acceptable seasons.
To make the final playoff spot in the East, you will need at least 90 points. The past 2 seasons the 8th place teams had 92 points. The Leafs currently have 55 points and are tied for 13th spot in the East. To reach 90 points and 8th place they would need to leap frog 6 teams and go 17-7-1 the rest of the way. That would be quite an achievement for a team that needed 48 games to win its first 17 games.
This team can't even lose right. Pushing up to to 9th or 10th place means that at the Amateur Draft in June, the Leafs will not be able to grab an impact player. Hopefully, this nonsense will soon be put to an end by Cliff Fletcher when he trades away the dead weight that finally woke up for the last 25 games of the season.
12 years ago
