Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Leafs & Rivals



Have the Leafs done enough to be classified as better then their rivals? Well Ross Mckeon from Yahoo sports thinks we’re better then the Sens. Check his article at...

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=AnZ5U9fndkKkNTGXqKmO4XoJfwM6?slug=rm-nhlpower081209&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I am not so happy about the ranking the Leafs got in his list but even he thought we are better then the Sens. The Question is though are we better then them or the Montreal Canadiens? The Leafs over the off season have added muscle, grit and great defensive ability which certainly boosts their rankings but not much if Mckeon’s is the guy doing them. Defence has always been underestimated and with such a solid and well rounded unit of defenceman it will be interesting to see how we fare this season compared to weaker defensive teams such as the Sens and Canadiens.

Now Back to comparing the Leafs with the Sens and Canadiens, we see that over the summer the Canadiens have gotten shorter but much faster and offensively quite strong. The Sens have signed Kovy (that’s Kovalev not Kovalchuk) who for me won’t be that good next year while trying to adjust to the Sens’ system. The Leafs have the upper hand on the Sens not because of the talent but because of all the issues they are going through at this point in time with Heatley and I feel he might become a huge distraction this year for them. We must also remember that the Sens have acquired Pascal Leclaire and he might just make a huge difference in net for the Sens.The Canadiens will be a better team then up because they have a decent bunch of Dmen and they have quality forwards.

It’s sad to say that they will be the better team next year, but I think we will do much better then Ross Mckeon is suggesting and we will certainly have a tough time catching Montreal due to their well rounded team. In my previous articles I have stated many times that the speed at which the Leafs gel will tell us how far this team will go this year. If they just don’t click then we might be worse then the Sens, Canadiens and basically every other team. It could go the opposite way and we might just end up in 6th place (don’t tell me you thought I was going to say they would end up in 1st place).

We will have to wait and see which of these three teams will be the best after their offseason moves and who will stink up the house.

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