Why Are the Toronto Maple Leafs So Bad?

Someone should call Home Hardware and tell them to prepare for a large order of red light bulbs. The ones behind the Leafs’ goal must be getting close to burnt out. Getting scored on a lot is not a big problem in the NHL, it happens all the time. The problem arises when a team can’t put pucks in the other team’s net to counteract the lack of defence.
Why are the Leafs being outscored by such a large margin? They are in last place in the entire NHL, (or 30th for the optimists) and in 6 games haven’t registered a win, being outscored 28-13 in the process.

The first reason is the Leafs’ goaltending, which has been mediocre at best. The Leafs’ goals against average (or amount of goals scored against them per game) is 4.66. A good goalie’s goals against average is around 2.50, so the Leafs’ goalies are letting in 2 goals more per game than other teams. Yes, some of the goals have been nearly impossible to stop, but it seems every time Vesa Toskala is in net, a weak goal or two cross the line.

The Leafs don’t have a good crop of forwards this year, something that fans and analysts alike realized before the year. Their best forwards would be average on many other teams, but since the Leafs weren’t expected to let in many goals, there would be less stress on the forwards as they could win a lot of 3-2 or 2-1 games. When the forwards don’t trust the defence to keep the puck out of their own net, they get uptight and put unnecessary pressure on themselves, limiting their effectiveness.

The defence has been the source of the most criticism in this young season. New players Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin have not played well enough to warrant their new contracts, $4.5 million and $3.8 million respectively. Luke Schenn seems to have fallen victim to the dreaded “sophomore jinx” that hurts players in their second year in the league. Experts have attributed a couple of reasons to the Leafs’ defensive collapse.

First, since the goaltenders have been playing so poorly, the defence must play more cautiously, and that requires abandoning their natural instincts, causing decision making to be delayed, and causing players to once again put unnecessary pressure on themselves. Second, Komisarek and Beauchemin are new players, so it will naturally take time for them to get used to playing with their new teammates, needing to figure out tendencies of their defence partners and forwards so they know where each other will be and the style of game that is played.

Unfortunately, a team struggling in Toronto is not a new phenomenon. The Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto Rock, and Toronto Raptors all missed the playoffs in their last season. The Toronto Argonauts and Toronto F.C. are bringing their respective seasons to a close, and barring a miracle, will both also miss the playoffs. Toronto’s Sports Radio, the Fan 590 recently said Toronto should be dubbed “The City of Losers,” as Detroit is “The Motor City”, New York is “The City that Never Sleeps,” and Chicago is “The Windy City.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to invest in Home Hardware stocks. At this rate, they’ll be busy.