Leafs Let Another One Get Away

Toronto Marlies Darryl Boyce: Toughness and Smarts

by Louis “King of Roncesvalles” Pisano… I covered the Toronto Marlies last year for T.O. Sports Magazine, and I watched Darryl Boyce play a lot. He was the only guy in an article I wrote for print that didn’t get called up at one point or another; the ones who did were: Phil Oreskovic, Tim Stapleton, Juri Tlusty, Andre Deveaux, and Anton Stralman. If you want to check out this article.

He’s a good guy from the East Coast, Summerside PEI, and it seems that he just hasn’t been able to make that jump to the big club, not for a lack of talent, but for space.

If Brian Burke hadn’t picked up Colton Orr, Wayne Primeau, Nikolas Wallin, Victor Stalberg, Christian Hanson, and Tyler Bozak, perhaps Darryl Boyce might have gotten a fair shake and more of a look, or at least a chance in the preseason.

The Leafs are having a hard time keeping the puck out of their net with their defensive zone coverage. They sit near the bottom of the league in both penalty killing and goals against.

Boyce brings a physical game every night and he gets his body in front of shots, which is a rarity for the team on the ice for the Leafs at this point.

His speed is better than average and he is a tenacious forechecker in 5-on-5 and penalty kill situations.

He isn’t scared to drop the gloves and stand up for a teammate, as I have witnessed on a few occasions, and he can put the puck in the net when given the opportunity.

He is excellent in his own zone and understands what is expected of him in whatever the situation may be.

Boyce has an incredible work ethic in practice and is one of the favourites in the dressing room with his great sense of humour and easy going mannerisms.

In my mind Darryl Boyce has all the qualities that would be beneficial to the Leafs and he would bring a few of the things that seem to be lacking.  His toughness and work ethic may even rub off on some of the guys who need a kick in the butt. No one likes to be outworked, and with a guy pushing you, you can’t help but step up your game.

Richard Wallin was supposed to be a defensive specialist and hasn’t been much of anything, to be honest.  Swap him out for this good Canadian guy who better fits this role.

Bring up Boyce and give the kid his shot! I don’t believe he will disappoint!

Josh Koscheck Should Shut Up: GSP Could Take Him and Dan Hardy on the Same Night

by Stoker MacIntosh… One of the most truly bizarre cage fights ever witnessed took place from the Mandalay Bay Events Center this weekend, at the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s 106th event.

The match was fought at 170 pounds, and it was between welterweight contender/pretender Josh Koscheck and up-and-comer Anthony “Rumble” Johnson.

Koscheck—after losing most of the standup battle—decided to take the fight to the ground and was then accidentally fouled by Johnson while attempting a wrestling maneuver known as a double-leg takedown.

Depending on who you ask, the foul was an illegal knee strike to the arm or shoulder area. Nevertheless, the behavior displayed by Koscheck following the foul was nothing short of Oscar-winning.

He cried, wailed, moaned, and seemingly wanted three weeks of recovery time for a foul that, in all honesty, other fighters would have shaken off in a matter of seconds.

Yet, in the end, he presumably decided to do the right thing; he started acting like a true professional cage-fighter, sucked it up, and went back to work.

However, for a guy who was supposedly injured, mortally wounded, or in severe agony, he displayed no outward signs whatsoever.

In fact, Johnson seemed to be the one affected; in a fight which he was once dominating, he seemed to now be mentally and physically absent, no longer able to hold his own.

As a result, he quickly gave up his back to the revitalized Koscheck, who wasted no time sinking in a sloppy-looking choke submission for the win.

Koscheck presumably also won the equivalent of the UFC presidential lottery, which is $140,000 for both the submission and Fight of Night honors, given out by commander in chief Dana White.

The award to Koscheck seemed to be more along the lines of a gratuitous gift, for hanging in there, finishing the fight, thus satisfying the blood-thirsty crowd instead of leaving them in an unhappy and riotous booing frenzy.

If that’s not enough, during the post-fight interview with UFC commentator Joe Rogan, the 170-pound “pretender” Koscheck—who is nothing more than a pumped-up offal from The Ultimate Fighter reality show—decided to take advantage of his TV time and call out British MMA head-hunter Dan Hardy.

He stated, in effect, that he—and not Hardy—should be entitled to the upcoming title shot at the elite French Canadian fighter, and UFC welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre.

Hardy, who was seated at cage-side, basically laughed it off, gesturing that Koscheck should cry him a river.

My advice to Koscheck, who has already lost decisively to St-Pierre once and has two other losses to much more skilled contenders—Brazilians Thiago Alves and Paulo Thiago—is that maybe he should prove himself worthy of a title shot first.

Certainly beating a rookie such as Johnson or “tomato cans” like Yoshiyuki Yoshida or Frank Trigg doesn’t “fill the bill.”

And, finally, that he should also be very careful what he wishes for, because he just might get it.

My feeling is that St-Pierre would easily devour both Koscheck and Hardy on the same night and still have room left over for a large Montreal smoked meat sandwich.

Raptors Need To Rediscover Their Scoring Touch!

by Stephen Brotherston… Before this season started, it was widely assumed that offense would not be a concern for the Toronto Raptors.

But something has happened recently. In three of the past seven games, the Raptors have failed to break the century mark. And in two of the last three, they only managed 91 and 96 points in loses to Utah and Orlando, respectively.

In the preseason, Jay Triano virtually boasted that the team had spent almost no time on offense as this wasn’t going to be an issue. And to start the season it looked like he was 100 percent correct.

The Toronto Raptors started out of the gate scoring easily and often. The Raptors averaged 109.4 points per game over the first seven games of the season, winning three and losing four.

Bosh and Bargnani returned as the Killer Bs of last season, regularly racking up a combined 50 points and 20 boards per game to start.  Bosh averaged 29 points per game and Bargnani averaged just over 20.

In those first seven games:

Hedo Turkoglu averaged 15 points;

Calderon had a slightly disappointing 11.6 points;

Marco Belinelli and Jarrett Jack each averaged just over seven points; and,

DeMar DeRozan averaged a modest 4.7 points.

Obviously some of their opponents enjoyed similar success against the Raptors.  A 111.4 points per game surrendered ensured the Raptors didn’t win more than they lost.

And the defensively challenged Raptors let opponents shoot almost 48 percent against them.

Something changed in game eight of the season. The Raptors won a game without scoring over 100 points as they held the offensively challenged Chicago Bulls to just 89 points on the night.

The next game in LA against the Clippers saw a repeat defensive performance. The Clippers were held to 89 points as well in another Raptors victory.

Over these last seven games, the Raptors have held their opponents to an average of 104.3 points per game.  A very nice 7.1 points per game improvement over the first seven games. But the Raptors were still letting teams shoot at about 47 percent over this period.

Unfortunately, the Raptors own “inevitable” ability to score had subsided as they only managed to score 103.1 points per game over this period. A substantial 6.3 point per game dip from their hot start.

Eliminate the 120 the Raptors dropped on the Heat, and the Raptors are just scoring a pedestrian 100 points per game over the past seven game stretch!

So the Raptors record over these seven games was the same as the first seven. The Raptors won three and lost four again.

The Killer Bs had become less dangerous, averaging just 40 points per game between them. Turkoglu missed a game and had a slight dip in his points production.  But offsetting some of the damage was Marco Belinelli putting in an extra three points per game.

Over the last seven games:

Bosh has averaged 24 points, down 5;

Bargnani 15.6 points; down 4.5;

Calderon found his stroke and averaged 13.4 points;

Belinelli averaged 10.1 points;

Jack stayed at about 7 points; and

DeMar DeRozan improved to 6.2 points.

The Raptors scoring is disappearing at a just slightly slower rate than their opponents.

The Raptors evidence of defense was mirrored by a decline in their own production resulting in no real change in outcome.

And the minuscule decline in opponents shooting percentage still does not get them to the Raptors’ stated team goal of an opponents field goal percentage of 45.

But the trend is encouraging. Over those last seven games, at least two of the loses were winnable by the Raptors.  Only a small change in fortunes could take the Raptors from a just under .500 team to substantially over .500.

Continued improvement on defense and the re-discovery of their disappearing scoring is all that stands in the way of a huge run by the Toronto Raptors.

Brothersteve’s Green & Red Raptor Blog

Dwayne Roloson Wanted in Connection with Robbery at “The Hanger”

by Eric Warren… The Toronto Maple Leafs lead the league in “shots per game” with an average of 34.7 shots on goal. That doesn’t include those that missed.

Dwayne Roloson absolutely stole the show last night for the visiting Islanders, as the Leafs peppered 61 shots on the visiting goal tender in a 4-3 OT loss at the ACC.

While Roloson, now 40, is enjoying a resurgence of sorts in the Big Apple, we aren’t here to recap last nights game.

As I stated before, the Toronto Maple Leafs lead the league in shots on net per game, with an average of 34.7 per. However, they are near the bottom when it comes to goal per game, sitting in 23rd place with an average of 2.54 goals per game.

If we were talking New Jersey Devils , that number would be spectacular. (The Devils are actually in 20th at 2.62 per game.)

The obvious issue isn’t the amount of shot’s the Leafs are taking, nor is is really the amount of goals they are scoring, a good defensive team can win with those kind of numbers.

No, my friends, the issue is, the Leafs can’t seem to keep the puck out of their own net. With a GA/PG average of 3.64, good enough for last in the NHL, any team with a respectable defense would be chomping at the bit to play this club.

One of the obvious reason for this disparity is goal tending. Although Vesa Toskala has certainly started to turn his game around over the last couple of starts and has stopped 48 of 52 shots, better, but still not good enough.

The argument could be made however that for the most part he is stopping shots that he should be now whereas, a week ago, that probably wouldn’t have been the case.

Gustavsson , on the other hand, looks like he is on a bit of a down turn. He looked, like Nik Antropov in net last night. Really big, but a little slow, and a little awkward. He seems to have lost a little bit of confidence. I would expect to see him in goal for Friday’s game.

While the Leafs did well to limit the Islanders in shots last night allowing only 21, the team defense is still allowing too many chances down low.

I know, you’re going to say,” Toskala should have had that shot by Tambellini .” Well you may be right, but I’ve never been on the receiving end of a shot from him so it’s hard to say really.

All the Leafs have to do, is keep playing the way they are for the most part. The defensive zone coverage has to be a bit better, and a bit faster. The Leafs defense has got to start racing for the puck in their zone if they can’t keep it from getting in, but having said that, they also need to start standing the opposition up at the blue line more.

There are still a lot of changes coming for this team, with them seemingly playing a little better, even with the loss’s, Burke and Wilson will have to be careful to not rock the boat too much all at once.