Leafs 4, Canadiens 2. Next Up: 7 Game Win Streak. 8th Here We Come!

You just knew the Leafs were going to come out exceptionally well against the Habs in Montreal tonight. All season long (and a long time before that), the Leafs have been the team you do not want to face after they've gotten murdered on the ice. When you then add on to that that the killing was perpetrated at home in front of their fans...well the Habs opened the doors to the Bell Center tonight knowing that they were the band who had to go on after the Beatles, and too bad for them, 'cause their amps only go up to '10'.

The Leafs still have A LOT of pride in them, and no matter what Darren Drager said last week on TSN -clearly the low point in his career- the Leafs aren't dogging it to have a better shot at S. Stamkos. They are going to go down kicking and screaming until such time as they are told they aren't allowed to do it anymore.

Now given that right now the Leafs have a very good shot at getting Stamkos, we, as Leafs fans must hilariously understand that the Leafs will now go on a 7 game winning streak, throwing them back into the thick of it for the last playoff spot. THAT my darlings is what we get for following a team that has GUTS and CHARACTER to spare. One of the best examples of that tonight was when the King of Kings was ready to kick Mike Komisarek's head in for the extra shoves on Robbie Earl when he was down. If that doesn't make you want to go to war for the jersey, then I don't know what will.
So even if the Leafs don't make the playoffs, thank Christ this is the team we love, and not a bunch of gutless, choking assholes who dive in the playoffs...Aaarrghthpppthhh-Mike Fisher-phhthhh-p-tew! Sorry, I just had to spit there.

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Sorry everybody, I don't want to ruin your morning read but I do have to mention something terrible that surrounds us everyday. What, you may ask? Cystic acne? No, something much worse: Howard Berger.

I've written like a champion before about Howard. He's been getting on my tits for a long time now. The article above I wrote in the middle of August while the Leafs were gearing up for camp. Everything I said in the piece relates to an article that Berger just wrote yesterday on the terrible Hockeybuzz.com

Hockeybuzz is a website where the head guy just makes up a bunch of shit every morning and puts "e3" next to it, telling you he'll have "more later...". He just keeps reprinting this misinformation, hoping you'll keep refreshing your page, putting money in his pocket. If by some ungodly chance something he reports actually happens, he smugly claims superiority. WHEN it doesn't, and he gets called on it, he simply shrugs and says "I only said they were rumours.", laughing all the way to the bank.

Anyway, so Berger wrote a ridiculous piece about his "limo" driver in Montreal who had the smoked-meat-filled gall to ask him how Leafs fans manage in "that city". Berger, knowing he's got a live one here, which means he doesn't have to write anything now and so he can more quickly get one of those smoked meats for himself, urges him on, "How do we do what?"

"Put up with that hockey team. It doesn't seem like it ever changes in Toronto. The Leafs are always bad. Every year, it's the same thing."

The fatso continues:

"You have an awful team, year after year, but that arena is filled every night. Don't the people care? If we had that kind of team here all the time, there would be riots on the streets like in 1955. Canadiens' fans wouldn't put up with it, I can assure you."

And old Howard just let's him go. Berger feels absolutely no pressure to bother to mention say, that the over the course of the 90's and till this year the Leafs have had a better team than the Habs. Not mentioning that not so long ago we went to the conference final with half our line-up decimated with injuries- most notably to Mats who had a broken wrist and our goalie Curtis Joseph who had a motherfucking broken hand! How about those years -not so long ago- when the Habs couldn't make the playoffs to save their lives? Convenient silence from Howard.

And why? Because he uses this dumb biased bastard's words to actually come out and attack the very last group of people responsible for the Leafs problems: Leafs fan themselves:

"Leaf followers are the champion of two-faced sports fans. They bitch and moan and curse at their team; even cheering for the opposition as in the late stages of the Florida massacre Tuesday night."

This fucker just attacked you, me, and all of us who actually give a shit, no matter what, about this team. He uses the disgraceful antics of a very small group of people in the stands on Tuesday, to whitewash us all with the lazy label "Two-faced". He knows that too, but he doesn't care.

Then he says, "But, they have no capacity to offer meaningful resistance. Like sheep, they mindlessly flock to the arena every hockey night, in every disastrous season." Right, it's our fault the Leafs have had a bad season. And one of the ways we can prove we're not sheep is to what, turn over some cop cars and light them on fire like they did in Montreal one time in the 50's?

Once again Howard, like most things, gets it completely wrong. Firstly, every season disastrous? WRONG. Second, mindlessly flock to the arena? You mean go to the game because we're not fairweather fans who can't fill our building like so many expansion franchises he himself probably rails against? WRONG. Good one, Howard, you're really keeping the good name of Hockeybuzz alive and well.

This unbecoming welt which turns us into two-faced sheep is something called "Passion". Howard Berger seems so bored covering the Leafs, it feels like that's something he lost a long, long time ago. At this rate, he wouldn't know it if came up and shaved him in his moustache.

SEXY UPDATE: Think it's just me? Get the actual numbers proving this from the awesome Cox Bloc.

BEATING A DEAD HORSE: NOW NOT JUST A EUPHEMISM FOR MASTURBATION

My opinion of the Florida game is the same as yours. Quite frankly Greener wrote about it below and my opinion is the same as his. And at this point the least said the better.
It almost ruined, for me, what happened on Saturday night. (I said almost.)Ultimately, (bigger picture ultimately) I don’t care if the Leafs lose every game from here on out. All I ask is that they beat the team from ottowo every time they play. I really love that it was on HNIC too so all them wool socked friggers were watching.
I must admit I especially liked how bad it made Spezza and Ray “Wanna Step Outside?" Emery look. I tell you something, I’d rather have McCabe for 5 than Spezza for 7. Spezza for 7? Now that’s over paying.

And let me ask you this: Which razor would you rather have on your team?

And a big He Score, He Shoot, ‘atta boy to Robbie Earl who not only got his first NHL point, on Hockey Night in Canada no less, but also showed as much hustle as the Van McCoy wikipedia page. With a spinnarama pass so good he made it look cinchy. Colaiacovo, fresh from not being injured, finished the play for the (eventual) game winner. Another ‘atta boy to the out of nowhere Dominic Moore for his first goal as a Leaf.

Stat that made me vom a little in my mouth: 19 Games since Kyle Wellwood's last goal.

I have suddenly started feeling a little queasy about a few of the trades that have been bandied about. Shit, I have to admit; a few times I have been the bandier. But I have started to feel that there is something akin to a pack mentality happening? My last post I called it Trade Deadline Fever or something equally as dramatic and awesome. It’s like watching a fight and then suddenly finding your self stomping a guy who’s lying on the ground’s neck. There is something similar in bicycle racing: it’s called the peleton. In the peleton you don’t even have to peddle. You’re sucked into it, no questions asked.
It’s just like being a fan of the Leafs right now. We have been so terrible this year. Admittedly I have, shall we say, imbibed in my time, so the memory, like the ol’ gray mare, aint what she used to be but this is the worst that I can remember. Because of that it’s easy to get sucked into the vortex that surrounds our team right now. A place so full of greed and avarice that if it weren’t wearing socks you would call it the 1980’s.

It’s a fairly Canadian mentality to eat our own. Canada/Canadians love when the Leafs are terrible. Read the Toronto media after any game day and disagree with me. There are even Leafs fans who talk with relish about the Ballard years or Alan Bester as our number 1 goalie. Don’t even get me started on the guys who talk of conspiracies between the MLSE and the underground gambling dens of Toronto or the bastards who call Mats Sundin a bad Captain and over-rated.

What was I talking about? Oh yes. I read the papers and I think of the trades that can be made. The potential trades. Like I have written about already. It turned me into a monster…and quite frankly speculatin’ hurts my brain.

Recently I was in a social setting where I found myself defending the Leafs. Saying the usual, this team isn’t as terrible as it seems. Nobody would have predicted what we are facing this year. Excuse me, the dude has cancer. Yes, we’ve been blown out of the water, embarrassed in our home rink, booed by (some) fans, but we’ve also lost 17 games by one goal. And then it starts to hit me: the idea that maybe we shouldn’t trade everyone away. Maybe the problem isn’t the team. Elements of…yes, of course. I know I have talked about blowing this shit up (blowed up real good) but I am starting to think that that’s not the answer. This year is a write off. We know that already. But I am starting to think that trading away all of the pieces is as dramatically incorrect as keeping them all.
Do I think Mats should be traded? Yes, absolutely. Would I trade Kubina? Yes. Gill. Yes. McCabe and Blake….perhaps but only to free up cap space for the up-coming UFA free for all.

The point is we know we will finish near the bottom of the standings. It might not be ocean front but it’ll be ocean view, if you know what I mean. And everyone knows that in this years draft...really anywhere in the top 10 is a lock. Trading Mats makes sense strictly for the return. Parlay that first round pick with our own and then tinker and trade and sign in the off season.
In other words - Don’t trade Kaberle. The justification that Anton Stralman is the next Kaberle is not enough. Isn’t that a good thing? To have as many Kaberle’s as possible. I know his return would be amazing…but Kaberle is too big a piece of the future pie.

And finally... another 'atta boy to Mike B from Sudbury, Ontario our He Score, He Shoot Fan of the Week for his new Norte tattoo.Way to go, Mike!