Toronto Maple Leafs

Tlusty Set To Audition

Jiri Tlusty is being rewarded for his strong play in the early part of the AHL season.  With 6 goals and 10 points through 8 games, Tlusty continues to outpace the majority of his competition in the AHL this season.  He is better than a point per game player in his AHL career, with 38 goals and  94 points in 88 games, or 1.07 points per game.

Prior to his call up he remained one of only seven players producing at a pace of 1.25 or better in the AHL who hadn’t been called up to an NHL club.  Five of those players are Alexandre Giroux, Brett Sterling, Chris Chelios, Michael Nylander, and Andy Wozniewski.  Tlusty’s 21, while all of those players are 24 or older.  Sterling is the youngest of the group at 24, but he’s alarmingly small at 5′7″.  Let’s just say that generally speaking those players aren’t his peer group in anything beyond production.

He’s still only 21 years old, and his production in the AHL has been favourably comparable to many other young players who have gone on to find success in the NHL.  Patrick O’Sullivan had 132 points in 119 AHL games (1.11 ppg) for Houston and Manchester as a 20 and 21 year old.  Bobby Ryan produced 77 points in 70 AHL games (1.10 ppg) between the ages of 19 and 21 for Portland and Iowa.  Andrei Kostitsyn produced 122 points in 180 games (0.67 ppg) for Hamilton between the ages of 18 and 21.  All three of those players have produced a 50+ point season before hitting the age of 23.

Tlusty obviously has the talent level and skill to produce points at the NHL level, he just needs to be more assertive and aggressive in order to accomplish what he needs to.  Mind set has a lot to do with production in the NHL and Jiri’s tends to be a tad too passive.  His confidence may also be an issue as he isn’t particularly brash for a player his age.  If he gets the opportunities that Stålberg has been running with, there is every possibility he will run with it.  That means power play time, minutes on the first line, and generally a chance to produce every game he’s with the big club.  I look forward to him slotting in alongside Stajan and Hagman over the weekend.

None of this is a slight on Stålberg of course, but he was struggling to find the back of the net, and sending him down to a level where he will likely excel with more opportunity to polish his game is definitely a plus.  This is the advantage of the Leafs having a number of young skilled players on 2 way contracts.  They can be rotated in and out of the line up in order to provide them with the opportunity to both succeed and develop.

Vesa Toskala and Phil Kessel are both on deck to return in the next week or so, which should lend some excitement to the press releases from the Leafs.  If Toskala does get the start on Saturday, look for the Leaf fans (and Habs fans) in Montreal to be ready to boo him at a moments notice.  If he plays well on the other hand, it may give him a chance to get a bit of a weight off his shoulders in that regard.

The Leafs have been playing much better of late and even Jason Blake has produced something recently - with 3 assists in the Leafs OT loss to Dallas the other night.  Nikolai Kulemin finally got on the board with 2 goals, and has been rewarded for his strong play with more minutes of late.  He may have found some chemistry with Mitchell and Blake and I strongly hope that Wilson leaves that trio alone if it gets the three of them going.

There has been some discussion in the MSM that the Leafs are considering playing Blake alongside Kessel and Stajan, and I personally feel that would be a huge mistake for a few reasons.  Firstly, Blake and Kessel are virtually identical in terms of their style of play.  Neither one is llikely to do a lot of the spade work to get the puck out of the corners for the other guy.  They both like to shoot off the rush, and frankly Stajan has no chemistry with Jason Blake.  That is part of what concerns me with playing Kessel and Stajan together, but I’m willing to wait before passing judgement on that pairing.

No matter what happens, having a weapon of that caliber on the horizon is a huge boon to the Leafs, and should drastically help their offense.  Their offense which currently ranks as the top PP unit in the NHL based on percentage output and not overall production.  They don’t get enough opportunities to play on the PP for that to be the case.

Perhaps with Kessel in the line up, his speed will engender more penalties for the opposition as they try to corral him.  We can only hope.

Next up against the Leafs are the Buffalo Sabres, who feature Luke Schenn’s old defense partner Tyler Myers on the blue line (the guy I wanted the Leafs to draft 7th overall before they traded up and selected Schenn - I was on the record with that at the time).  They also have one of the best records in the NHL, and the Leafs always struggle against them in Buffalo, so for those reasons alone, I’m guessing the Leafs will be in tough to get a W.  But hey, the Leafs could use a good luck bounce or two, so let’s see if they can pull a couple of wins out over the weekend, and get some confidence as we enter the month of November.

Happy Hallowe’en to everyone and try to enjoy yourselves safely over the weekend.