BY NICHOLAS CARAFA – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
When Jeremy Roenick beat Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Ed Belfour high glove back in the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs, no Leafs fan in their right mind would have guessed that game would be the last playoff game at the Air Canada Centre for almost a decade.
Fast forward to the 2013 season, and the Maple Leafs are playing meaningful hockey with a dozen games left in this year’s campaign. There is talk about playoff positioning and trade possibilities come the April 3 deadline, not the playoff drought that has haunted fans for eight years.
Barring an absolute catastrophe to finish the season, we will be watching Leafs’ playoff hockey come May. For fans of the Blue and White, that’s music to the ears.
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There has been tons of speculation about the team’s possible options come Wednesday’s trade deadline about picking up Roberto Luongo, Miikka Kiprusoff or a solid defenceman to round out the team’s top-four pairing. That’s not happening, and should not happen.
For the last few years Brian Burke preached about staying committed to the rebuild, and now with Dave Nonis at the helm, the direction isn’t changing anytime soon. Since the beginning of the season, Nonis has praised his two young goaltenders and claimed them to be of NHL calibre. What sense would it make to have James Reimer and Ben Scrivens steer the ship all season long to only have a veteran goaltender come and take over for the remainder of the season and start of the playoffs. That instills absolutely no confidence in the man they call Optimus Reim heading into next season, and if anything, it’s an insult to the hard work he has put in this season to get the Leafs to where they are.
While he hasn’t proved himself to be on the same playing field as Marc-Andre Fleury or Henrik Lundqvist, the experience will pay off. If the team holds on to the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and plays either the Jets or Hurricanes in the first round, that’s a series that could see the Leafs come out on top. Let Reimer get a taste of playoff hockey and get some experience under his belt, so management can finally have a solid understanding of what they have between the pipes. Maybe it takes a year or two for him to mature into a polished veteran goaltender, but give him the chance to prove himself. Simple as that.
No one is expecting the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup this year, and so what, we lose in the second round of the playoffs if we make it that far. It’s progress, and as a Leafs’ fan I’d rather give my core group of guys that playoff round or two of experience so they can grow and mature as a team. We’ve waited 45 years for a Cup, what’s another two or three if that means building a solid enough of a foundation.
As always, there will be tons of hype surrounding the trade deadline, and the decreasing salary cap next season raises some uncertainty. There may be one blockbuster move or two at the most, if that at all, but either way, the Leafs should stand pat. The Blue and White have surprised enough people so far this season, and once playoff hockey comes around, anything can happen. This team is starting to turn heads, and surprising people all over the NHL, but come May, I’m ready to see this city erupt when playoff hockey comes back to town.