Jeremy Roenick knows precisely what he’d do if he were the new president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He would make the group accountable for their collapse and insist on team defence.
“With the Toronto Maple Leafs giving up an average of 36 shots defensively and you have a guy like Dion Phaneuf, who just signed a $7 million [per year] contract, that’s just unacceptable,” Roenick told Brady & Walker on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Wednesday morning. “Brendan Shanahan really has to start laying the law down and making these guys who are making a lot of money and have a lot of expectations on them stop making excuses and stop talking about slumps and just get the job done. Or just don’t put them on the ice.”
The outspoken former player, now an NHL analyst for NBC Sports, Roenick went on to describe Phaneuf as a “very, very good hockey player,” but pointed out that the reason he logged a team-high 23:33 per game is because the Leafs give their captain little support in the defensive zone.
“I wouldn’t call him a great defenceman, but he’s mean, he has the ability to control the power play and play well, especially in front of the net,” Roenick said of Phaneuf. “His expectations of what he can do might be a little high, but he’s a competitor like no other.”
Other members of the Leafs’ blueline, which surrendered the fifth-most goals per game in the NHL at 3.07, were given even less of a pass from J.R.
“[Cody] Franson looks like he’s skating in the sandbox every night. He can’t keep up with the league today,” said Roenick, who spread some additional blame to the Leafs forwards. The Leafs, he argued, could take cues from the Kings and Bruins, when it comes to back-checking. “You have forwards that don’t work hard enough to come back and help out; they hang the [defencemen] out to dry.”
Disappointed that only one Canadian team — the Montreal Canadiens — qualified for the playoffs this spring, Roenick argued that the other Canadian teams need to be held to higher standards. Players should pay for lackadaisical play by being demoted to the minors for a stint, having their ice time chopped, or being pushed harder in practice.
As for the Leafs, Roenick believes the the 45-year-old Shanahan is the guy to instill this kind of work-hard-or-else approach.
“I think he’s willing to learn and willing to take the beating in order to get there,” Roenick, 44, said of his former opponent’s ability to steer Toronto in the right direction. “The job that he has now might be just as high-pressure as the job he had before; laying out suspensions and fines — and really taking a beating by owners, GMs and players and fans.”
