Was it me or did the Leafs look rusty?

[Disgruntled70sHab]

I'm beginning to wonder whether or not the Leafs are just shaking off the cobwebs of an Olympic break. They looked rather disorganized against the Devils. They just didn't seem to have any chemistry at all.

I'll be watching them for the next little while. I want to see just what Cujo brought to the team in addition to game-saving goaltending. I think he was/is a pretty well respected guy in the dressing room and it will be interesting to just how much influence he brought into the dressing room.

It may be too early to tell, but me thinks Cujo brought much, much more to the Leafs. Cheers.

[Doc Holliday]

Cujo is certainly a leader on this team and his absence will be felt, but above all, the one thing Leafs will miss from Joseph is his ability to stop puck.  Shwab gave 3 goals in his first 3 shots last night.  Leafs will have to do something as they can't seriously think of going 20 some games without a real goaltender.  Mind you, if they chose that route nonetheless you won't hear any complaints from me !!  

[Mike_Anton]

I thought the Leafs also looked disorganised at times against Carolina.  Its no secret their defence is weak.  Some Leaf fans were mentioning after the NJ game that maybe they should make a trade for a D or 2 instead of going after a goalie.  Some fans don't want the Leafs to trade any of their prospects which they don't have a lot of.

I did hear though the Habs contacted the Leafs about Tucker in a possible deal for Hackett but I don't think the Leafs would trade Tucker.

[clear observer]

There's also the other element that Cujo brings to the table...or any other stellar netminder for that matter...and that is the security of allowing the offence to take a few more chances/liberties on the rush. The ripple effect on an entire team can be enormous when there's an elite netminder between the pipes. We've seen it all year long. Can you imagine where we'd be without Theo? Uggghh.

CO

[Ryan]

You hit the nail right on the head CO.

CuJo's impact isn't so much his play.  If you watch him on a consistent basis like I do you'd realize that there's a reason personal accolades have eluded him.  He's about 10th in the league as far as goalies go, no worse, no less.

But the image of him stealing the show behind a team that can concentrate on scoring is what makes the Leafs tick.  Especially after last nights WEAK performance by Schwab the Leafs are going to be concentrating more on D and losing their style of play.

I don't even think there's a goalie on the market right now that will restore the Leafs to their level of play when CuJo is in net, but we'll see.

[Doc Holliday]

Very good point CO and Ryan.  Leafs style isn't defensive but with Cujo gone, they'll have to try and concentrate on that more.  Not only is changing your system a hard task at this point in the season, but how will the offensive minded players feel about thier new defensive responsabilities?

CO, about the HABS, I've been wondering just how much our style fit our team.  With the players we have shouldn't we try and come up with more a open style and let Theo work the miracles?  Petrov/Zednik/Berezin/Ribeiro/Perreault just doesn't sound like a good trap/defense first unit.  When the team concentrate on D, we end up with a 16 shots night and look disorganized as hell in our own end anyway.  

[Ryan]

I think you're right Doc.

Let's face it, our future on D is much brighter than the future.  Put some vets back there that know what they're doing (Rivs, Dykhuis, Q, Breezy), put in Markov and Hainsey and see the forwards free.  We're pretty free-wheeling upfront and we might as well play that to our advantage.  Ottawa and Colorado are high-octane teams that let their goalie work and rely on strong defencemen.  We're missing the quality defencemen which will make the next year or two tough, but we're setting ourselves up to play like those two teams anyways so we might as well get started.

[MPLABBE]

Doc_Holliday said:

Very good point CO and Ryan.  Leafs style isn't defensive but with Cujo gone, they'll have to try and concentrate on that more.  Not only is changing your system a hard task at this point in the season, but how will the offensive minded players feel about thier new defensive responsabilities?

CO, about the HABS, I've been wondering just how much our style fit our team.  With the players we have shouldn't we try and come up with more a open style and let Theo work the miracles?  Petrov/Zednik/Berezin/Ribeiro/Perreault just doesn't sound like a good trap/defense first unit.  When the team concentrate on D, we end up with a 16 shots night and look disorganized as hell in our own end anyway.  

I absolutely agree.Every time we play the friggin trap we are not playing the style best suited for our team.We should play a 2-2-1...not a 1-2-2.

[MPLABBE]

Ryan said:

I think you're right Doc.

Let's face it, our future on D is much brighter than the future.  Put some vets back there that know what they're doing (Rivs, Dykhuis, Q, Breezy), put in Markov and Hainsey and see the forwards free.  We're pretty free-wheeling upfront and we might as well play that to our advantage.  Ottawa and Colorado are high-octane teams that let their goalie work and rely on strong defencemen.  We're missing the quality defencemen which will make the next year or two tough, but we're setting ourselves up to play like those two teams anyways so we might as well get started.

Yeah,but we need to get rid of Therrien before thinking offence-first.Therrien is the kind of coach who would have played defensive minded hockey with the Oilers of the 80's and would have sent a checking line center to play the point instead of Coffey.