I have to admit it. They almost had me.
With their furious push over the past couple of weeks—really since the start of 2011—the Toronto Maple Leafs, in one of my weaker moments, almost had me convinced that a playoff spot was firmly within their grasp for the first time since I was a wide-eyed 18 year old headed into the den of inequity that is university life.
James Reimer exploded out of nowhere and put this team on his back to give the Leafs first rate goaltending that hasn’t been seen in Toronto since Eddie Belfour blocked shots with one hand and drank beers with the other. Everything I’ve read about Reimer points him to being a good kid with a rational head on his shoulders, but I’m curious to see how he reacts to this newfound fame as the big dog on the city’s most popular team.
Reimer is a small town kid from Manitoba. You’re telling me he’s going to be able to resist the voracious big city puck bunnies wishing to go for a ride on Optimus Reim? And he’s going to have the willpower to say no? My prediction is that next season Reimer will succumb to the same affliction that has felled Carey Price in Montreal: an overdose of nightclub skanks, late nights and free booze.
Phil Kessel also stepped up his game big time over the last month. He surpassed the thirty goal plateau for the third consecutive year and helped shoulder the offensive load, giving Leaf diehards ammo to defend the still ridiculous trade of two HIGH first round draft picks for his services.
Sorry Leaf fans, but I need the top player on a playoff calibre team to play at a consistently high level for eighty-two games and not just show up periodically when he feels like giving an effort or play hard when the team has an insurmountable hill to climb to a playoff spot.
There has also been a plethora of players I’ve never heard of scoring goals and taking up ink in the newspapers. Some days I wasn’t sure if I was reading about the Marlies or the Leafs.
I have to hand it to this team though. They have successfully hoodwinked their fan base into thinking this was a good season and that they have something to build on for next year. No, they don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t have played so terribly in the fall and winter. It’s not hard to play well when there are zero expectations and pressure.
Sure, we had to listen about Toronto still having a mathematical chance, but I called it weeks ago that there were too many teams in front of the Leafs to make a playoff spot a realistic possibility. The last two weeks have just been window dressing and it’s your own fault if you believed in this nonsense. The Leafs making the playoffs is like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
The Leafs stole a page from the Blue Jays playbook. Play well at the end of the season when the games don’t matter and give false hope to the people paying their hard-earned money to watch you suck for the first four months of the year.
All this mini run did was blind everyone to the fact the Leafs had another terrible season and will, once again, be working on their golf swings while the good teams in the league continue playing. It’s like Groundhog Day for a Toronto sports fans.
The only good to come out of this is that I don’t have to write about the Leafs or their fans for at least five months.
Wonderful.
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