Toronto Maple Leafs and the Goaltending Carousel
The Leafs’ goaltending situation is getting ridiculous, already. Obviously, nobody is happy with Vesa Toskala between the pipes. This has been the case all offseason as people clamored for Jonas Gustafsson and Joey MacDonald to be the team’s one-two punch in net, and after an extremely shaky start (4 games, .810 SV%, 5.57 GAA), an “injury” has put Toskala on the shelf for a couple weeks.

I put quotations around injury because a large part of the problem with Vesa is clearly mental, so this may be an early-season vacation more than anything. He spent his summer hearing the sport’s largest media market rip him to shreds, and he’s been booed on several occasions already. His playing style isn’t conducive to a lack of confidence, as his size is not such that he can afford to cower in his crease or look around defenders. Instead, he is bested suited to be aggressive, something he has not shown the willingness, confidence, or ability to do thus far.

I was a Toskala supporter in the offseason, but at the same time, Brian Burke spent a big chunk of energy and money chasing The Monster, and it doesn’t make sense to have him sitting on the bench while the starter struggles. If not for his own groin problems, the situation would be pretty clear – let Gustafsson sink or swim while Toskala heals up.

Instead, Joey Mac got the call (with James Reimer backing up in an emergency) against Colorado. It was ugly, and mostly unlucky, but he didn’t exactly solidify his roster spot when all parties are healthy, either.
More after the jump!

This title, which will be a running one for Leafs coverage here, assumes that knowledge is evenly distributed across 82 regular season games. This is not reality, of course, as we know plenty from previous seasons, the offseason, the preseason, and other “hockey insider” cues. Still, there are but 82 games that count, unless you are of an elite 16, so it is really only the truths these 82 games reveal to us that matter. Thus, after one night of NHL hockey, we know but 1/82 of what we will know about the Toronto Maple Leafs come season’s end.

1/82, or 1.2195%, is an awfully small glimpse of the overall picture. Still, if we are to take opening night lessons to be of any greater importance than a 47th-game’s lessons (and we all sure treated Game 1 that way), then we have some positive and negative things to look forward to when it comes to this year’s incarnation of the White and Blue.

The Leafs fell 4-3 in overtime to the Montreal Canadiens last night, an outcome that is surely disappointing and not necessarily deserved. The Leafs outplayed the Canadiens throughout the night; they won battles for loose pucks, controlled the time of attack, out-shot Montreal by a wild margin, and looked physically superior to the small-but-quick Habs. Still, records are all that matter and good efforts are essentially for naught, so the Leafs must take the OT loss for what it is – a single point, a disappointment, and an early building block for a team that is still carving out an identity together.
More after the jump!