Well, what do you know? Somebody cares after all. Just when you thought the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t have any stones left – starting with the invisible parade-planner himself, Tim Leiweke, this organization has turtled on the 2014-2015 season – Nazem Kadri is told to sit out Monday night’s game against the New York Islanders as a healthy scratch after arriving late for a team meeting on Sunday.
The excuse is irrelevant, there is no explanation necessary. Leafs fans long ago realized that this faint-hearted group is a joke on the ice, but perhaps now some attention can be paid to what will be left when the truck is backed up at the end of the regular season. Scorch the earth if you want, just don’t salt it so that nothing ever grows.
Frankly, I don’t care about Dion Phaneuf, Joffrey Lupul, Phil Kessel or Tyler Bozak – the Four Horsemen of the “Leafpocalypse” – because at least three of them will be elsewhere next season, hopefully with a jet stream behind them. My concern is that this new strain of Blue and White disease (the Nonis Strain) doesn’t end up claiming some of the players this team needs to keep around – and, yes, I’m including Kadri in that group. (Dear god … things have become so bad that Kadri seems like a beacon on the hill.)
Kadri’s misstep is sad because he is one of only a handful of Maple Leafs who seems to have maintained any sense of pride during this awful season. Indeed, he’s been one of few forwards who has at least shown signs of trying to figure out a balance between offence and defence, and we all know he’s Mr. Congeniality for the possession-crazed numbers guys.
In the meantime, is it really true that upwards of 1,000 minor hockey players were brought down to the Air Canada Centre on Saturday morning for the morning skate only to see less than a dozen Leafs on the ice? Those are your 2014-2015 Leafs, ladies and gentlemen: masters of the optional morning skate, masters of the optional regular-season game. It really is enough to make you ask, “what about the kids?”
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BAUTISTA’S LAMENT
Jose Bautista pressed his case in an interview with our Shi Davidi for greater player involvement in overhauling baseball’s pace of play rules, and as always Bautista’s point was made with clarity and reason.
But with all due respect, Bautista is wrong and here’s why. Both players and umpires have spent decades fudging the game’s pre-existing rules, in a kind of benign system of self-interpretation. They could get away with it because for the longest time baseball’s hierarchy was fighting bigger battles – economic, systemic and even moral.
Look, I’m more pro-player than most in just about every aspect of the game, but at the heart of the matter pace of play regulations are about changing an unwritten culture. There is no point in letting the authors of those rules suddenly have a role in their changing. As a person familiar with the thinking of the commissioner’s office told me last week, what Bautista and David Ortiz and other players need to understand is that the pace of play rules currently being put in effect at Double-A and Triple-A are in many ways a threat, it is a sign to Major League players that they are, literally, on the clock.
If they don’t want draconian measures — and a pitch clock is the height of stupidity given the rash of arm injuries the game is seeing, because it introduces another stress point in the act of pitching — then they can take it upon themselves to speed up the game. Stay in the box. Stop schlepping up to the plate. If baseball sees evidence this season that the game is proceeding at a better pace, other changes may not be deemed necessary. The players have total control of the agenda right now, even if they don’t realize it.
WHAT I LEARNED
The things you learn in a week hosting a sports talk show
“People who have been out there saying we can diagnose CTE now (in living subjects) are simply searching for publicity and funding for their projects.”
– Chris Nowinski, co-founder and executive director of the Sports Legacy Institute, dismisses published reports that indicating it is possible to detect CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in living patients.
“This is going to be a very, very interesting competition all spring long. You know, if you look at the two [Dalton Pompey and Kevin Pillar] and watched them play a week’s worth of games, Pompey would stand out because of his athleticism. But if you watch – and I compare Pillar not only to Hunter Pence but to Jim Gantner of the Brewers; a guy that you see play a game or two and you say: ‘Ah, there’s not much there, there’s nothing special ‘
– but then you see him play a month of games and then you start to calculate how many times he did things to help you win games … he does a lot of things that won’t get your attention in a one-game situation, but over the course of a week you’ll go: ‘That guy helped us win three or four games and didn’t get us any hits.”
– Blue Jays TV voice Buck Martinez on Kevin Pillar.
“Aw, man. I love his game … his offensive game in my opinion has gotten better. His confidence on the offensive side of the ball is much better to me. You’ve seen growth because his offence was a question mark in my mind. He’s taken some big strides offensively; he’s very good around the basket and he’s hitting the mid-range jump shot.”
– Cavaliers radio analyst and former NBAer Campy Russell thinks Brampton, Ont.’s, Tristan Thompson has improved his offensive game significantly en route to becoming a candidate for NBA sixth man of the year.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
– There aren’t too many ‘firsts’ left in Tim Duncan’s Hall of Fame career, what with game No. 1,311 coming up Tuesday night against the Toronto Raptors. But there was on Sunday, when Duncan failed to score a bucket for the first time in his career in the San Antonio Spurs’ 116-105 win over the Chicago Bulls.
– It’s no surprise that Winnipeg Jets rookie goaltender Michael Hutchinson would rebound on Saturday with a 20-save performance in a 3-1 win over Pekka Rinne and the Nashville Predators after being pulled during a 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday. He has been pulled from a game on two previous occasions this season, only to bounce back to help the Jets go on 6-0-2 and 5-0-3 runs in their next eight games. Hutchinson’s 20 wins lead all NHL rookies and match the franchise record set in 2005-2006 by Kari Lehtonen.
– Russell Westbrook schooled the Raptors on Sunday with his fifth triple-double in six games. Westbrook was tied with Magic Johnson, who had four straight triple-doubles in 1986-87, before having his streak snapped on Thursday against the Chicago Bulls. Are you beginning to get the sense that Westbrook and the Thunder is going to write themselves large down the stretch? OKC has won 14 of 15 at home – losing Feb. 6 on an Anthony Davis game-winning three-pointer as time expired – and have 12 of 19 games remaining at home, including seven of their next eight. Yikes.
THE END-GAME
It takes a troll to know a troll, so it’s awfully nice of Ron Wilson to come back and dance on the grave of the Maple Leafs. His input is exactly what the situation needs. I know I missed him calling Jonas Gustavsson “Monsty” in his post-game blather — isn’t that beauty hockey lingo? Maybe sometime Wilson can explain why he thought Dion Phaneuf deserved the captaincy of the Leafs.
Jeff Blair is host of the Jeff Blair Show from 9 a.m.-noon ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan. He also appears regularly on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown.