Cox Doesn't Know Where His Towel Is
With Simmons exiled to Grey Cup duty, we didn't get quite the mitten-stringer pile-on I predicted last night, but there's no shortage of idiocy on Toronto's sports pages today, much of it revolving around six-time Vezina Trophy winner Tuuka Rask. Wharnsby called both goals that eluded the love-child of Terry Sawchuk and Chuck Norris 'fluky,' saying of Mats's goal "The puck was on its edge and beat Rask on the stick side because it dipped at the last second." Mmm-hmm. And Komisarek only scored the winner on Raycroft last week because his five-hole opened bigger than Jeff O'Neill's pizza order at the last second. With that excuse-making ability, Wharnsby is ready for a job at MLSE.
This pales in comparison to Cox, a man who, to paraphrase the old Army saying, writes five illogical things before breakfast. Last night's loss, we are assured by DC Talk, shows us that all that injuries haven't hurt the Leafs, they just suck, cause now they're all healthy. Um, except two of their top four defencemen are injured. And Make-A-Wish Wozniewski isn't. Silence, we say! Excuses don't fly with Cox. Unless its yesterday, and he's not writing about the Leafs. I mean, he gave the Ducks a pass for their crappy start cause they apparently had jetlag that lasted a month. Also, trading a 2nd rounder for a guy who can't crack the Crapitals lineup is a great move. The Spin, indeed.
Much like the Buds he hates though, he waits till the last moment to really squeeze out the crap:
Something - anything - should be done. Atlanta has fired a coach, Dallas canned its GM, while the champion Ducks have dumped a goalie and acquired a new grinder.
Yet the Leafs preach patience, when in
reality meaningful patience, as represented by a lost prospect like
Rask and the first-round pick given up for Toskala, long ago went out
the window.
Funny stuff from a man who, two short weeks ago, was extolling Brylcreem Jr's blueprint:
Six of the Leaf draftees in the lineup tonight, meanwhile, will be 24 years of age or younger, and John Ferguson's group believes that it has two 21-year-old stars of the future in Marlie goalie Justin Pogge and Nikolai Kulemin, a 12-goal shooter in 24 Russian league games this season.
All in all, that's progress, or at the very least, an intelligent change of approach for the Leaf hockey department despite all ownership has done to undermine those hired to make hockey decisions in order to find a shortcut to even two or three games of playoff revenue and feed the 22 per cent profit margin monster.
Ottawa, clearly, has used a logical draft-and-develop blueprint to build the terrific team it now ices on a nightly basis.
So
maybe, to be fair, if they're geniuses in Ottawa - after all, they've
got one Stanley Cup final victory now to lord over all - they can't be
total dummies down south here in Ontario's second city of hockey.
So Damien, were you full of it then, or now? My money's on both. You're just that good.
HAHAHAHAHA Perfect. "Dipped at the last second"? Except it didn't. If you had listened to Bowen last night you would have thought that Patrick Roy had been cloned and signed with the Bruins.
You can spin it anyway you want but both goals were brutal. The deflection from Metropolit's skate came at almost the top of the circle which Mats' shot, dipping or not, came from the blueline with no screen.
Thank you so much, Godd and Kim. Finally, Toronto sports writers with whom I agree!
Except, of course, for the way you questioned the argument that the Leafs' failures are the fans' fault for selling out the arena. That's, like, TOTALLY true.
Agreed. I was at the Bruins/Leafs snorefest and the fact that Rask was named the game's number one star by "the folks at Leafs TV" (according to Andy Frost) reveals nothing so much as the fact that someone at Leafs TV REALLY enjoys sticking his or her thumb in JFJ's eye whenever possible.
Sundin's goal was a brutal miss. The only way a guy with a "B" on his chest should miss that is if the "B" is preceded by the letters "CNI". Going down 2-0 on a fifty foot unscreened (and half-hearted) slapper should have done it for the B's. Instead, everyone on the Leaf bench nips out for a quick beer or seven during the third period and the Leafs lose 4-2.
For the "3 star picker" (ew, sounds dirty) to then announce to all and sundry that Rask was STILL the best player on the ice tells me there's somebody in the Leaf organization who's on the verge of running JFJ over in the company parking lot. Maybe a DC cousin?
The only way a guy with a "B" on his chest should miss that is if the "B" is preceded by the letters "CNI".
Awesome. It appears the JFJ Deathwatch is in full swing today - I'll try to get a roundup with all the ghoulish details.
Cox has a comparison of Norris Saw-Chuck (Tuuka) with Lundqvist up today. I know he's a great prospect, but jeez, one average game and you're up there with probably the league's best goalie this year?
Someone once said of Randy Rhoads "I've never seen a guy become such a better guitarist, just by dying." The NHL equivalent is being traded from the Leafs.
"Someone once said of Randy Rhoads "I've never seen a guy become such a better guitarist, just by dying." The NHL equivalent is being traded from the Leafs."
- same as in the CFL, where teh best player EVAR (just ask anyone) = "backup quarterback for the Hamilton Tiger Cats"