Doc, not to bust your balls, (ok a little, lol) but I think these guys dont hate Wilson like you like to believe sometimes. GREAT WIN! its games like this that remind me why i am a FAN of Hockey in general, but more important, a fanatic of Canada's REAL TEAM!
My only problem with Wilson is that he's been there for nearly 3 years & his special teams keep getting worse. For the past 2 seasons, they blamed poor PK on poor goaltending & personnel. Last season, they signed Mike Komisarek, traded for JS Giguere, Dion Phaneuf & Freddie Sjostrom. They've since added Kris Versteeg & Tim Brent, with hopes these players would greatly improve the penalty killing.
This season, one of the only bright spots on the team has been goaltending, which is often stated as a team's best defense or penalty killing. They now have brand new PK personnel who've succeeded elsewhere in this department. They sometimes made changes to the PK strategies. To what benefit?
The Leafs are once again near the bottom of the PK stats in 29th place. The blame absolutely has to fall on Wilson & his coaching staff. You can't blame the personnel anymore. It pisses me off that Mtl is #1 in PK, but i attribute it to very good coaching. Say whatever you want to say about Jacques Martin, but the guy CAN coach. He rarely gets outcoached & his team can beat any team on any given night. You honestly can't say that on paper, that they have a good defence. It's actually very average. However, they're one of the top defensive teams in the league. People have been bitching about the habs lack of success on the powerplay, however, looking at the stats, they're still considerably ahead of the Leafs in that department.
Yes indeed, the players are playing hard for Ron Wilson. But at what cost? Playing hard for a coach doesn't mean that he still deserves to hang onto his job, considering he's coached one of the most inept special teams every since his arrival nearly 3 years ago, year after year with not much signs of improvement. I honestly cannot think of worse special teams on a Leafs team in the past 20 years. Special teams win games. Special teams lead teams to playoffs. Special teams win playoff series, and eventually the team winning the Cup will always have great special teams. Needless to say, as much as i hate to admit it, things are not looking good for the Leafs unless they dramatically improve their special teams. I'm not holding my breath that they will.
Great win by the Leafs last night, in a game they were clearly outplayed in the first two periods. It was clearly a steal on the part of the Leafs, but they've had it happen to them so many times that it was bound to finally happen to them. Tough games against Pittsburgh, Philly & Mtl coming up. I'll be overjoyed if they can manage to get 3 pts out of 6.
Go Leafs Go!
