Searching For Goals
January 4th, 2009 by Steve
The Leafs won against the Senators because their goalie stood on his head and they got a couple of clutch goals. It of course helps that the Sens starter was Martin Gerber, who has done anything but grab the starters job since arriving in Ottawa and signing a fat contract.
They played with an increased level of “toughness”… if you call hardly reacting to a blatant spear on the part of Jason Spezza “tough”. To be fair, the Leafs were missing their “toughest” player in Andre Deveaux, and Ian White was the next closest thing Chris Neil could find to challenge for a fight.
No matter the fact that the Senators sit behind the Leafs in the standings… let’s just ignore the fact that the Sens D has absolutely nothing of note to contribute offensively. Heck, why not pretend that the Sens have secondary scoring and imagine that the Leafs are overcoming great odds in beating a team that pounded them mercilessly when they actually played like contenders.
Lets face it… the Senators are a crappy team. The Leafs beat a one line team. Let’s call them the Tampa Bay Lightning North, with slightly fewer high priced forwards that can’t score. Even WITH that going in the Leafs favour, they made the whole thing alarmingly difficult. Consider the following cold streaks from Leafs forwards:
Antropov: 0G, 1A, -4 rating in his past 6 games.
Ponikarovsky: 1G, 1A, -3 rating in his past 6 games, oh and he played all of 11:52 against the Sens.
Hagman: 1G, 0A, -2 rating in his past 6 games.
Grabovski: 2G, 3A, -2 rating in his past 14 games.
Kulemin: 1G, 1A, -4 rating in his past 11 games.
Really the Leafs need some missing offense, and oddly that spark seems to have emenated from Matt Stajan.
Lee Stempniak, Dominic Moore, and Jason Blake have carried the mail the past couple of games, but that’s not exactly a line that’s going to scare the opposition, and if the first two players I mentioned, and the speedy second line can’t get some production going, the Leafs will continue to struggle.
The whole problem is exacerbated by the fact that their goaltending has been amazingly inconsistent this season. Luckily Toskala played well against the Sens, and he’ll have to continue to make big saves if the Leafs hope to win many more in the coming week or so.
Stajan’s injury happened last Saturday, so we’re up to a week and counting. The team could use his production sooner rather than later.
Posted in Player Analysis, Stat Analysis
5 Responses to “Searching For Goals”
By koopa kid
on Jan 4, 2009
The Grabovski line has had it’s chances, but it’s two rookies and a career third liner who have now been exposed as one of the Leafs more dangerous scoring lines. The rest of the season is going to be a struggle for a line that really plays too fancy for their actual skill level.
I just can’t believe that Matt Stajan has become such a cornerstone of our offense. I remember his elevated play with Sundin out last season thinking “He still pretty much sucks”, I guess what I was missing was that nobody else on the team was elevating themselves into that offensive role at all (notably Steen, who has been fairly productive given a boatload of PP minutes on a more skilled Blues team).
To be fair to the Sens, regardless of how bad their record is, that team does deserve more. Both Fisher and Vermette are still good scoring players, they showed it tonight, the Sens just couldn’t buy a goal. I think Smith, Volchenkov, Phillips, and Kuba make a rock solid defensive D. The Sens are missing some parts, true, but I think it’s likely that they are suffering some dressing room issues, much like Dallas earlier in the season.
By Steve
on Jan 4, 2009
I’d dispute that the skill level of the Leafs second line is below their production so far. Grabovski has oodles of skill, and Kulemin is still figuring out his game in North America. He’s been more physical of late, and his speed is a great asset. I think they’ll produce more if Kulemin takes more shots, and grows more confident.
As for Stajan, yeah I didn’t expect anything out of him this year. I have always been frustrated by his complete lack of confidence in his own shot, which often results in him producing zero goals. This year though he’s going to the net with authority, and he’s playing with two players who can actually pot the occasional goal… his forechecking skills are also on display. He’s doing well.
Lastly, I don’t honestly think the Sens are suffering from a lack of defensive skill… their goaltending blows, and they have NO offensive push from the D. Kuba had points on the PP early on, but those have dried up in a large way, and nobody else produces offense particularly.
Fisher and Vermette are not particularly solid scoring players… Fisher has 12 points in 32 games, and he is a -11. That’s 3 goals and 9 assists. That is NOT a solid scorer. Vermette has been a freaking atrocious 8 point producer in 36 games, and he’s an even worse -14.
How are we even considering those two to have “showed it tonight”?? Fisher had 3 shots in 19 minutes of ice time. Vermette had ZERO SHOTS in 17:04 of ice time. That’s offensive to me as a fan… and if I was a Sens fan it would offend me a lot more than it does now.
Their shooting percentages are 3.7% and 3.5% respectively. They make Jason Blake look lights out with his 7.8% shooting percentage. Oh and by the way, he had a goal and an assist tonight… so wouldn’t that make him the one who showed some offense?
I’m not trying to come off as rude, I just seriously don’t see how anyone can argue that Fisher and Vermette have contributed anything worthwhile this season offensively.
By koopa kid
on Jan 4, 2009
Contributed no, and that’s the reason for the Sens struggles thus far. They lost a lot of forward depth and basically put their eggs in the basket of those two guys, who have come up short thus far. I’m just saying that by looking at them they obviously have enough offensive skill at their disposal to be real second liners, they just haven’t gotten anything together so far. Just like Grabs at the beginning of this year, it looked like he was capable of scoring, he just wasn’t.
By Gerald Norton
on Jan 4, 2009
To be fair, Neil challenged White to a fight, in reaction to Whites gutless low bridge on Fisher.
I was amazed that nobody so much as skated towards Spezza after that limp wristed spear. But, it’s not exactly like Moore isn’t an angel, and maybe his teammates thought he was just getting some of his own medicine (as pathetic as it was).
Why can’t a player either just skate away, or drop them. I’m sick of the cheesy elbows, low bridges, and spears, I don’t care who delivers them.
By Dan
on Jan 4, 2009
I didn’t think the check on Fisher was a cheap shot, I think it looked a lot worse than it actually was. Too me it looked like White went for a ass-check and Fisher rolled off and made it look like a great check. White will get credited with a great check when Fisher helped him embellish it. Neil and Fisher are best buddies, so it’s not a complete surprise to see Neil run over and fight a guy two or three weight divisions down from him. For Neil’s sake, I think he didn’t go to town on White either. I agree with Gerald, these guys should just skate away.
On another note, and this is to also be fair, had the ref not grabbed Garbovski’s stick, he to would have speared a player. But Grabovski usually is able to get away with those jabs, he’s pretty crafty. Drives me nuts though that these guys spear. It is gutless.
I’m happy with the win, hopefully it can help them get on a little more of a run. It’s going to take a lot more effort than that to pick up wins now that the dog days are here.