BY MICHAEL GARDNER – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
It’s good to be optimistic. It’s better for your health and certainly makes you a lot more fun to be around. As long as the effort is there, the results will come. Right? But like a homeowner who tries to build a family swimming pool with a shovel and a homemade liner, there are times when the thought just doesn’t count.
For the Toronto Maple Leafs, this is one of those times.
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Achieving first overall honours in the league reminded one of a Seinfeld episode. It was real and it was spectacular. In the end, the episode lasted about 30 minutes (with commercials).
In recent times, the Leafs have come back to reality and to the middle of the pack. Which is fine. It’s where most folks expected them to be.
However, there are some troubling signs that this slide to reality might not end where we want it too. The Leafs’ penalty kill is horrible and they are not playing a style, or the players, that the President and GM envisions.
And if you connect the dots between those two points you get the picture of Ron Wilson. It is time to make a decision on his future.
Over the last six seasons, the Leafs are at or near the bottom of the PK effectiveness chart. They have tried any number of ways to fix it with similar pathetic results. In turn, we’ve blamed the goalies, the defence, the forwards but the one common thread is the coach. Wilson’s PK units, in Toronto, have been horrible.
Every year.
How bad is the Leafs PK? They currently have about a 73% effectiveness rate. That means that for every 100 opportunities, they give up 27 goals.
Why is that a problem? Their power play is running at a 22% rate. Which is great and good enough for second overall. But what it means is that for every 100 opportunities that are given, they score 22 times. Quick math tells you that the Leafs’ special teams, the teams that “win games”, are -5.
With the Leafs fighting for a p-word spot (can’t say it for fear of the jinx) this kind of stat needs to be corrected. It will cost them.
While Wilson’s PK strategies are under scrutiny, so too are his lineup decisions.
While Brian Burke is on record as saying that he places a “great value on belligerence… if two teams are otherwise equal, the tougher team is always going to win.”
While Burke has found players like Colton Orr and Jay Rosehill to play those roles, Wilson chooses to sit them in favour of PK specialists like Philippe Dupuis and Joey Crabb. Nothing against those players but we have those already on our third line and it isn’t as if their presence is improving the PK.
Fans may disagree with the value of truculence. However, the simple reality is that Wilson apparently does not share the same philosophy as his boss. That is a discrepancy needs correcting.
Orr and Rosehill represent $1.6 million against the salary cap, which is a tidy sum in the talent acquisition market if there is a new direction. Considering the players that Burke has drafted to fill out future rosters, I’m not so sure there is a new direction.
To address the above, Burke needs to make a decision sooner rather than later on the status of Wilson’s contract. It will expire when this season ends. Clearly, there are some performance concerns and philosophy differences that make me think that this contract extension is in question.
If so, it’s time to answer it now while there is still time left to make the necessary corrections.