It’s back on the road again as the Caps head to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs and former Caps coach Ron Wilson. The Maple Leafs are Team Frustration, having failed to win their birthright – the Stanley Cup – since May 2, 1967. To give you an idea of just how long ago that is, here are a few highlights from 1967…
The NFL had only played Super Bowl I to that point
The Doors released “The Doors”
The American Basketball Association was formed
Aretha Franklin released “RESPECT”
New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison claimed we would solve the Kennedy assassination, and would show it was planned in New Orleans. The body of the late President was moved to its permanent resting place in Arlington National Cemetery in that year.
Jimmy Hoffa, who was still alive, was sentenced to eight years in prison for bribery
Expo67, a world’s fair coinciding with the centennial celebration of Canadian Confederation, opened in Montreal
Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu were married
The “monkey law” (the basis for the “Scopes trial”) was repealed in Tennessee
The Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”… “The Soundtrack of the Summer of Love”
400 million viewers watched “Our World,” the first live, international, satellite television production. It featured the live debut of The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love"
The first automatic cash machine was installed, in the office of Barclay’s Bank in Enfield, England
“The Jungle Book” – the last animated film personally supervised by Walt Disney – was released
John McCain, who would later run for President of the United States, was shot down over North Vietnam and made a prisoner of war
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established
Christian Barnard performed the first human heart transplant procedure
Dave Matthews was born (January 9th)
So was Kurt Cobain (February 20th)
And Curtis Joseph (April 29th), in keeping with a hockey theme
And…Tony Siragusa, John Smoltz, Paul Giamatti, Nicole Kidman, Pamela Anderson, Will Ferrell, Vin Diesel, Deion Sanders, Carrie-Anne Moss, Harry Connick, Jr., Faith Hill, Mira Sorvino, Toni Braxton, Carlos Mencia, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel, Anna Nicole Smith, and Jamie Foxx.
It’s been a while…
But tonight, the Maple Leafs can try to take a small step toward changing history in hosting the Caps. For teams on opposite ends of the playoff divide (the Caps 3rd, the Leafs 11th), they have a fair number of similarities…
One would think, given those goals scored and goals allowed numbers, that this is going to be something of a free for all, more so when you consider these teams' abilities to score at home (Toronto: 3.33/game) and on the road (Washington: 2.86). The problem for the Caps, again, is that they are dead last in the NHL in total goals allowed on the road (55 total, 3.93/game), a point magnified by the fact that they are 28th in power play goals allowed (17 in 14 games).
It’s not that Toronto is without its own problems on defense. Being in the lower half of the league in 5-on-5 play and in the bottom five in penalty killing is a recipe for, well…being 11th in the Conference. If they do have a distinct advantage over the Caps for this one though, it is in that the Leafs are among the leaders in fewest minor penalties taken (3rd fewest, compared to 26th fewest for the Caps). Toronto has been shorthanded a whopping 33 fewer times this year than have the Caps. Washington has been shorthanded 81 times in 14 road games, making this a big factor to watch as the game unfolds.
Unlike the Caps, though, who will skate once more without seven starters, the Leafs are comparatively healthy. None of their top scorers will sit out, which means Matt Stajan – the Leafs’ leading scorer – gets to try and break the log jam at 46th in the league in scoring (7-14-21). Mikhail Grabovski (he of the Potsdam Grabovski’s) will try to add to his ten goals (tied for 36th with, among others, Evgeni Malkin…although Malkin has 31 assists while Grabovski has eight).
Toronto is one of those clubs that has tried to assemble spare parts in hopes of building a Maserati, but pretty much has a 1962 Rambler for its trouble. A look at the top dozen scorers on this team reveals shipments of parts built – or drafted – from Montreal (Grabovski), Florida (Niklas Hagman), New York (Dominic Moore), Tampa (Pavel Kubina), St. Louis (Lee Stempniak), New Jersey (Mike Van Ryn, who is out for this one), and a spare part who started as a free agent in the Los Angeles system (Jason Blake).
If there is a plan here, it isn’t immediately evident. Toronto fans hope that the Saviour of Providence (the city, if not the word meaning, “divine guidance”) -- Brian Burke -- can right the ship and return the Leafs to the glory that was theirs when bell bottoms were all the rage.
But for now, the Leafs have to skate with a team with a defenseman squad that is a combined -23 (although two of them, Van Ryn and Jonas Frogren, won’t be playing tonight). But it is a team with a fair amount of scoring balance. 11 players have registered double digits in points (eight for the Caps, two of whom – Mike Green and Alexander Semin – won’t be dressing). They have eight players with at least five goals (seven for Washington, the same two of whom are not playing tonight) and eleven with at least a power play goal. The Leafs might lack for a high-end scorer, but they do have players who can sit up and bite a team in the bee-hind.
Nowhere, though, it there a clearer picture of where the Leafs have been and where they can go than on the blue line. In one of the biggest head-scratchers of the free-agency signing period, the Leafs showered Jeff Finger with $14 million over four years…this for a player who had a total of 94 games of NHL experience coming into this season. He might be worth the money, and Toronto certainly has enough of it, but what there was about his performance or potential to merit such a contract remains one of nature’s darkest mysteries. He is 2-5-7, +1 in 19 games this year, so in some respects (and this might be a low bar to clear) he is pulling more than his fair share for this defensive group.
On the other side is Luke Schenn, picked fifth overall in last June’s draft. After struggling a bit early (0-0-0, -4 in his first nine games), he has appeared to become more comfortable lately (even in his last eight games…no small feat on this club). He is one of only nine players (Finger is not among them) to have played in all 26 games for the Leafs so far and looks like the sort of player a club could build a defense around.
In goal…well, it ain’t good. Vesa Toskala is the nominal number one here, but the term is relative. His GAA of 3.24 is ranked 40th in the league, his save percentage of .883 ranked 41st. And no, neither Jose Theodore nor Brent Johnson is ranked lower in either category. Should the leafs choose to go with Curtis Joseph (the same one born three days before the Leafs won their last Cup), his numbers – 3.95 and .851 would, if he had enough appearances, be ranked last in the league in both categories.Neither have been especially successful against the Caps, Toskala with a 2-2-0 record (3.13, .892), and Joseph with a 12-10-3 record (3.08, .897).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Toronto: Tomas Kaberle
OK, so he looks a little too much like Rowan Atkinson for comfort, but he leads the team in ice time (23:40), and he is the Leafs’ top scorer on the power play (1-10-11). He is a respectable 5-11-16, +1 in 31 career games against the Caps. On the other side, he is -10 in 26 games (worst on the club among players who will dress tonight), has only four points at even strength, and tied for the eighth highest number of giveaways among defensemen in the league. Which Kaberle appears – the one who leads the power play or the one who can be taken advantage of at even strength – could be the key for the Leafs.
Washington: Alex Ovechkin
Is he hurt? He gave that impression in the Islander game on Thursday (although his skating off and to the locker room was attributed to a “skate problem”). It would be nice to have him at full-strength, or something approaching it for this one. As much as to compensate for the absence of those seven starters, Ovechkin has dined on Maple Leafs in his brief career – 11-5-16 in 12 career games with seven power play goals. Given the prodigious performance of the power play recently (16-for-49 in the Caps’ last dozen games – 32.7 percent), having Ovechkin out there could be important.
The Caps have lost four straight road games, scoring seven goals and allowing 19. Goals should not be as difficult to come by for the Caps in this one, given Toronto’s defense and goaltending. However, the Caps are also having considerable difficulty keeping the home team from scoring when they visit. It points to a high scoring affair…
Caps 6 – Toronto 4
No comments:
Post a Comment