Breakout on Bremner

Way to go Brian Burke! Named the Fabian Brunnstrom of this season Bozak was a much sought after NCAA prospect after going undrafted and was on the shortlists of 25 NHL teams. I've got to think that Burkie guaranteed him a spot on the roster this season and that had something to do with it. Bozak's a sturdy 2 way center with offensive upside, a potential 50-60 point man in the NHL imo. He's coming off a knee injury, but he's impressed at the NCAA level with 23 points in 19 games this past season.


Not only does this replace the 4th that we lost but it adds to our bare cupboard. Now we wait for Gilroy.

The rebuild is on Toronto!!

Here's some Samurai for you to enjoy. Hopefully we'll see a lot more in the NHL.

Yes the son of "Slapshot" legend Dave Hanson has been signed by Brian Burke, and the Leafs.

He's a big gritty 3rd line centre with some goal scoring touch around the net. This just looks like it's part of Burke's "Sign 5 college players and hope 2 make it" plan. Too bad there's no fighting in NCAA hockey otherwise we can really see this guy goon it up like his dad. AM 640 has said Hanson could be part of the pregame skate on Wednesday, and be in the lineup by Friday!!

Being selected 14th overall in the 2007 NHL draft Shattenkirk isn’t the biggest or meanest player around. At 5’11 he is fairly undersized for a defenseman, but don’t let his size fool you. Shattenkirk is one of the top 50 prospects in hockey and currently the best prospect in the Colorado Avalanche.

Strengths:

Leadership

In the 06/07 Shattenkirk was given the honor of being named the captain of the U-18 NTDP squad where he took the team to the sliver medal winning US U-18 Team the IIHF U-18 World Championships.

Offense

Without doubt the stronger part of his game Shattenkirk is an offensive minded defenseman with a deceptively strong shot. The development of his offensive game is noticed when looking at his point production for the past few years.


SEASON*** TEAM*************************************** GP G A PTS +/- PIM
2005-06 USNTDP 28 6 9 15 NA 17
2006 USNTDP 12 3 7 10 NA 10
2006-07 USNTDP 14 5 8 13 NA 26

During the 2007-08 season Shattenkirk recorded 21 points in 40 games.
During the 2008-09 season Shattenkirk recorded 26 points in 39 games.


Defense

Don’t be fooled to think that offense is the only arsenal that Shattenkirk has. He is also defensively responsible. He doesn’t deliver the big hits rather makes the smart plays. He may not be big enough to knock some players down but he is strong enough to mustard players off the puck.

Weakness:

There are no glaring weaknesses in Shattenkirk’s game. He will need to develop his size more, improve further defensively and continue to improve offensively.

Size will always be a concern and fear of injuries in the NHL might occur. However, knowing this Shattenkirk is already working with a school program at Boston University over the summer with his strength coach.

Potential

Shattenkirk’s safest bet would be a top 4 NHL Dman who will be mostly used on the PP. However, if Shattenkirk does reach his full potential he can easily be a top paring Dman who can play both on the PP and PK. The only thing that will limit him from being considered a no. 1 Dman will be his lack of size and ability to eat heavier minutes [24+ ATOI] on a continuos basis [20 or so + ATOI is what I expect].


NHL Player Comparable


Dan Boyle or Brian Rafalski

A top paring Dman who will be responsible in his own end expected to put up fairly decent [50 or so points] offensive production.

Next in this new series of posts, Nashville D prospect Jonathan Blum.

Sorry BOB fans that we haven't been posting nearly as much. One of the bad things about being in highschool is that you get derailed with a bunch of work. I have the post material ready, and I'll slap it up on here tomorrow. Too tired now. Till then!

You've seen it in baseball, you've seen it in basketball, and now you've seen it in hockey.



Gotta hand it to the guy, he still hasn't given up on the season. Hats off to our ballsy bench boss Ron Wilson.

Looks like MVR is going to call it a season with a torn MCL.

In his first season wearing the blue and white the wore down glass man played 20 hardcore games. I must admit most of his injuries were due to dirty ass plays that should never happen in hockey.


Here we have rare footage of both glass men on the ice together at the same time!! Sight to behold Leafs fans.

Since we're close to Buffalo, my dad's a Bills fan, and the CFL sucks. B.O.B. will be following the Bills as well as other Toronto based teams.

In what I think is one of the best moves in the off season. The Buffalo Bills signed one of the biggest free agents available the oh so flamboyant Terrell Owens.

Why is this so freaking awesome? Because now Lee Evans doesn't have to face double and triple coverage every game. Trent Edwards will have some new found confidence, and hell its Terrell god damn Owens.

Laveranues Coles was signed by the Bengals for 7 Million, and the Bills signed TO for 6 Million who would you rather have?

Yet again we've got another edition of the Duds and Senaturds. This game holds huge meaning to the tank because Ottawa finally has a chance to catch us in the standings.

I hate the sens I really do, but I've got to be cheering for them this time around. I'd rather us get a franchise player then win a meaningless game.

Hopefully Sens draft Brayden Schenn(Yeah I said it.) to inject some poison into the veins of this crappy rivalry.

Canada vs USA was probably the most epic game I've ever been at. The atmosphere was amazing, crowd was crazy, there was baseball in March (!!!), Votto found his way into my heart, the only thing missing was a win for Canada. Alas, we can't have everything. Hopefully Canada comes through with a win vs Italy and USA/Venezuela.

When I got home, I decided to turn on the tube, and watch Venezuela suffer defeat against Italia (a guy can hope no?), and was instead amazed by the announcing. It started out with the random American announcers getting bonus points for calling the Rogers Centre, Skydome. That amazed me that they could be so uneducated, but was quite nice for them to call it by its real name. Then they decided to diss up our beloved stadium by examining the turf! It's not perfect but it's a hella lot better then that Astroturf stuff we were playing on before, so deal with it, my friend the anonymous announcer.

For the rest of the game things went along rather boringly, with them getting boners over Felix Hernandez's fastball, and Miguel Cabrera's high socks. In the 8th things took a nose dive. They decided to examine my beloved Jays. They came to the conclusion that we basically suck because the Yankeefag Burnett ran away, and that we should trade Halladay. WTFBANANAS. This is not good.

Halladay. Should. NOT. Be. Traded. EVER. Halladay will be a life long Jay. There is no doubt in my mind about this. Case closed, capeesh, fini.

Adios, GO CANADA ON MONDAY. Votto will continue his utter domination.

I'll be at the game today, watching Team Canada put a pounding on them Yankee's.
I might put up some random twits throughout the game, so feel free to watch along as I post things like "Got onto the subway" or "The cement is still as sticky as ever" and my favourite "I'm still too young to have a beer..."

Seems like Brad "fucking awesome" Mills decided to turn 24 today. Happy birthday to him, and an amazing birthday gift for him.

Yesterday he went up against the the all-star studded Team USA, including Doesn't-really-like-baseball Dunn. This kid did it all, pitched 3 innings, gave up 1 hit, and just 1 run. Gosh darn good if you ask me. And the kid's modest too apparently.

He probably won't make the rotation out of spring training, since he hasn't pitched at all over AA, but Cito seems to be developing a man crush for him, and Cito always has boner's over lefties in the rotation, so I suppose theres a chance he could get the call in the rotation. He might not have the big name of Brett Cecil (who isn't that popular compared to Mr. David Price), but the kid can throw, apparently due to a "deceptive delivery". Don't get me wrong on the delivery, but if that's the only thing that he has going for him, other teams are going to eat him alive once they face him a few times and watch him over and over in the video room. He's got to actually have some stuff to back it up. He apparently throws around 90 mph, which might be good enough for a lefty, but he's still has to make every pitch a good one, if he wants to succeed in the majors this year, or in the future.

For the rotation, my top choices would be Doc, Litsch, Purcey, followed by Richmond and Janssen. Richmond can hold down the fort till Mcgowan's back and throwing, and gives the young guys some more time to stay in the minors and develop. Remember, 2009 isn't our year we're looking ahead to 2010. If Cecil and Mills are able to come up mid way through the year and get 80+IP in this season, I think that would be a recipe for success come 2010.

But what do I know, I'm not JP or anything amazing like that

Deadline was better than expected for me. I don't know about you, but I think it's a great success. Let's go through some of our trades:

NYR gets: Nik Antropov
To gets: 2nd round pick, and conditional draft pick.

No Stralman involved. Good. No Tlusty involved. Good. No picks involved. Good. No first round pick. Bad, but at least we got a 2nd rounder which we were missing, and I'll give an update on the conditional pick as soon as I get the info.

Buf gets: Dominic Moore
To gets: 2nd round pick.

Again no picks, or prospects involved, and we got another 2nd round pick. Kind of a steal to me. Moore goes from being nothing and picked up on waivers to being worth a 2nd round pick.

Tb gets: Richard Petiot
To gets: Olaf Kolzig, Andy Rogers, Jamie Heward, and a 4th.

This is purely a money deal. Rogers is only 22, so he could prove to be a serviceable 3-4 defenseman and help us down the stretch. Kolzig and Heward will both be UFAs come the summer, and this is one of the better trades of the day.

Leafs also acquired two guys from waiver pickups

Former Sens goalie Martin Gerber, and defenseman Erik Reitz from the New York Rangers. Gerber comes in and becomes our number one goalie, with Toskala done for the year.

All in all today was a success and I wish both Antropov and Moore plenty of success on their new teams.

Both Moore and Antropov will be out of the lineup for tonight's game against the Devils.

Let's see this either means they're injured(Yeah right.)or that they're going to be traded soon. I like the latter. Now we get to see how both Blake, Stajan, and Ponikarovsky perform without these guys. Here's to a busy day ahead Leafs fans.

Moore and his agent have been in talks with the Leafs, and he's still asking for top 6 money. He wants 2.75M per season while the Leafs have left with less than 2M on the table. Negotiations have been stopped at the moment, but they're not completely done.

The Star is reporting that and Columbus and the Leafs are in talks with a trade around Pascal Leclaire for Antropov and Stralman if we're rebuilding why the hell are we trading away Stralman for Leclaire?!

Burke will be on the Fan at 3:05 today. Hopefully this rumor gets shot down.

The link for those who missed it.

Basic Recap of what he said.

- Likes Poni, has not had an offer worth making.
- Antropov has started to play great lately. Doesn't deserve credit for Antropov turning it on. Only Antropov controls how Antropov plays. Has not received a decent offer for him yet.
- He'll know by tonight if he can resign Moore or not. If not, he'll be traded.
- Likes White. Turned down a late 2nd rounder last week for him. He is not untouchable, but no offers even close to what he'd pull the trigger for.
- Has not inquired about Jay Bouwmeester. The offer would be too big for a "renovating" team to make.
- Has had no talks with Bob Murray about Pronger. Makes no sense to do that.
- Denies the Bruins/Kaberle trade.
- Was offered a Hockey Trade yesterday. Chewing on it at the moment. Likely going to reject. The trade has the Leafs receiving 1 player and 1 pick and the other team is receiving 2 players.

I think that's everything.

OK so what we can get from this is that Burke's not rebuilding per se, but just renovating whatever the hell that means, looks like he can wait a while for a crazy GM to overpay. He said his responses range from "Let me think about it." to "Drop dead."

And today at Leafs practice Jason Blake and Ron Wilson decided to lighten the mood up by playing a prank on everyone. Jason Blake decided to leave practice a little early with a grim look on his face, and as he was leaving he shook Wilson's hand. Gotta love Blake.

There's way to many rumors around this time, gets me all hyped up for the trade deadline day.

Ok so let's start with our biggest trade chip: Tomas Kaberle. The Boston Bruins are rumored to have offered Joe Colborne(He was their 08 first round draft pick) 09 1st Round pick, and their 09 3rd round pick. I'm meh on that offer. It's ok, but not that great. Colborne would grow into a top 6 role pretty easily, but that trade still isn't young roster player, top prospect, 1st(Yeah I'm still optimistic that we'll get that).

UPDATE: Burke has denied this rumor, but the man's a lawyer and a NHL GM. Take it with a grain of salt.

Another one was Ponikarovsky for a 2nd and a 4th. I can't discuss the things I would do if that were to happen on a public blog. Sorry BOB fans.

We've also got the Antropov, and Dominic "I want top 6 money" Moore to Chicago for a 1st+. That's about as realistic a rumor we've got today, and I really see one of those guys in a Blackhawks sweater on March 4th.

The above picture makes as much sense as Accardo becoming a starter. Cito decided Accardo could be a candidate to start, and Janssen is a candidate for the bullpen because he can be fit into the long relief role. This makes as much sense as saying Travis Snider should play 2B because he isn't over 6 foot and therefor fits the stereotypical 2B body.

Accardo has never started in his life, so whats the point of starting him now? He's a quality reliever, he does the job out of the pen well, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

For once, I'm hoping that the Jays do what JP wants and have Janssen in the rotation, and Accardo in the bullpen. This works, this is how Jays world should be. DON'T SCREW UP CITO YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE!

UPDATE: I was too lazy to get up and turn off the radio after listening to the game today, so I suffered (thats some sarcasm right there) through listening to Wilner. A caller decided to ask the question on all of our minds: WHY IS ACCARDO GOING TO BE STARTING!!!. Wilner thinks Cito just doesn't know any pitcher's names, and just got Accardo mixed up with someone else. In conclusion, Accardo will not be starting, the polar ice caps have not switched, and I am not the King of England. All is right in the world once more.

Another win, another draft spot lost. Are us Leafs fans not done with mediocrity yet? Because it sure as hell looks like the direction we're going to go in. Not to mention the non-tankers I have to deal with. "4 game win streak!!!! Booyah!". I'd love to break it you that the Leafs have to go 21-5-0 down the stretch to make the playoffs, so 9th place here we come! It's up to Burke to save us and clean this mess up. Waiting for TDD(Trade Deadline Day) so the fans can finally know which direction this team really wants to go in. That's all for now. Golf Leafs Golf.

In Jeff Blair's most recent blog post, he mentions that the Jay's are trying to showcase Rolen and Overbay, to try and dump some salary. This is all fine and dandy. Although Rolen is earning his salary for the most part, the injuries really hurt his reliability on the field. And despite Overbay's solid defence I still have doubts about him bouncing back from the wrist injury he suffered a few years ago, and I don't know how well he'll be able to perform this year.

Blair also says that the Jays are trying to clear salary to sign Orlando Cabrera. Wait wait wait, Orlando Cabrera the guy who hasn't posted an OPS higher than .750 since 2003? Yeah that guy. Is it really worth going after him when you have Scutaro, who is a solid player, albeit not as good as Cabrera, but still almost as good (Scutaro was worth 2.8 wins last year, compared to Cabrera's 3.7).

On one note, Cabrera would come on the cheap, you know with this end of the world economy and what not. But he would almost certainly require a 1 year deal, with hopes of getting a better contract next season, but he would also mean giving up our 1st round pick. The Jays in no way shape or form, should give up their 1st rounder, in order to sign a 1 year rental player, who isn't all that good. It's just foolishness.

If the Jays are able to move Overbay or Rolen's contract, I'm not really sure who they would sign. Cabrera is useless, Ramirez would be awesome but he'd still take $25m+/year, and everyone else is a replacement level bench player. The only thing I can think of is saving some money to add a guy during the season through a trade when teams are being hurt even more by the economy, but that would mean surviving with the corners being manned by Bautista and Millar (PLAYOFFS!).

• The Tao talks about how Beeston is more commited to spending on draft picks this year. Even more reason NOT to give up a first rounder.
• Halladay trade rumours hopefully put to rest?
• Why Carlos Delgado is, and always will be great.
  

The very young Chicago Blackhawks are primed to make the playoffs this year, so they could use some veteran help. Dominic Moore is your prototypical 3rd line center, great attitude, no quit, and very gritty. Burke's been in talks with the guy for a while, but he wants top 6 money for being a bottom 6 guy. Yeahhhh we aren't the New York Rangers Dominic hate to break it to you. Antropov well he's been one of our best forwards, and is definitely a valuable asset going forward. Both are UFA at the end of the season so don't be surprised when they are both gone.

So, Steve Mason has all but written his name on the Calder Trophy. No one other rookie can hold a candle to this kid anymore, he's been absolutely phenomenal.

Now we all know that Columbus plays a horribly defensive system. Boring for most, exciting for Blue Jacket fans. He could very well be a product of Ken Hitchcock's system. This one was easy for him though. The Oilers did nothing to make him work. He faced 19 shots and barely broke a sweat. My only question is when the hell is Craig "I hate Robbie Schremp" Mactavish going to get fired?

Post game thoughts: This game was horrible. Stupid roller coaster of nothingness. As most of you can tell I'm a tanker (I'd rather the Leafs lose now, and get a higher draft pick.)so now the Leafs have the 7th overall pick instead of the 4th which we had last week. But then again these are the Islanders and they're icing a horrible team right now. Next week the firesale begin.

Sources say that the Blackhawks and Canadiens had scouts at the game tonight so maybe they were looking at Antropov who didn't disappoint. No pretty sure the Habs scouts wanted Streit. Either way Leafs Nation next week will be a defining point in this rebuild.

Two games into spring training I have a few thoughts...

1. Travis Snider is raking it.

2. Scott Richmond and Cecil are both looking good. I'm not too sure anymore who I want to make the team, or who should make the team for that matter...

3. Scott Campbell, the loveable Kiwi, is playing 3B. If Jose Bautista gets let (HOPEFULLY), and Rolen's shoulder breaks down once more (PLEASE NO!), then Campbell might be able to fill in. I'm not sure if his offence will be able to fit in longterm, but I'd much rather have a young guy filling in who has the potential to be a great player down the road.

As much as I hate the habs, I love the stupid deals they've been putting out.

Steve Begin is off to Dallas in return Montreal gets Doug Janik. To me it's a lateral move.

Damn it's like Trade Deadline jr. today, $1.49 off of the NHL's value menu.

My sources are telling me Janik has just been waived...

This just in Penguins trade 6'4 puck-moving defenseman Ryan Whitney to Anaheim for scrappy Chris Kunitz and top prospect Eric Tangradi.

Basically this trade affects Kaberle since they're both puck moving defensemen. The great(ex)GM Ron Maclean say both Pronger and Ryan Whitney are worth than Kaberle. This is the same man that thinks Rick Nash is worth 2+ million more then Crosby and Ovechkin make. Pronger sure he's worth more proven playoffs performer having a cup ring and all. Whitney is 26 and has 4 years on his contract left. Kaberle is 31 on Monday has 2 more years left at 4.25 million, and is second only to the future hall of famer Nik Lidstrom in points since the lockout. Here's to a hectic week ahead, and many more first rounders.

So I was going through some sites I usually go through and ended up finding this.

Agree with it and then some. Would like to add no (as Don Cherry and Mike Milbury would say it and get sued for.) "pansified" players.

The Phillies are currently interested in adding an extra RH bat, which may push good ol' Stairsy onto the trading block!?

Madness I say, madness. No team coming off a World Series win should give away the guy who hit a game winning playoff homerun! Tis' madness.

BOB will be following this closely...

Baseball America released there top 100 prospects today. Mr. Wieters, the bona-fide-soon-to-be-superstar-who-hasn't-faced-AAA-pitching guy, found him self atop the charts. After that, we find Travis Snider - The great pasty white hope sitting in spot #6.

This grade seems spot on to me. The guys ahead of good ol' Snideyman are all either premium position players or flame throwing SP's. This goes to say alot about Snider. BA's one little comment talks about his power, which many of us have already seen.

To make a few comparisons to Snider, two other 3 possible outcome players (power HR hitter, takes lots of walks, and strikes out a hella' lot), Burrell and Dunn were ranked 2nd and 33rd the year before they graduated to the bigs. Snider seems to be smack dab in the middle of these two, with a closer comparison to Burrell. I think it's tough not to see Snider having success in the majors to some degree, but it's difficult to decide to what degree he will have success. Snider's main fault pointed out by many scout like people is the fact that he's a bit chunky, but it seems he's dropped a bit of the baby fat and is more of a baseball build compared to his football build that he used to have. All in all, I truely hope Snider becomes a masher with his HOF? potential.


The next guy to find himself ranked is good ol' Arencibia. I was incredibly surprised to see him at #43. I'm all for optimism with this kid, but until he learns to walk, I don't think he deserves to be this high. I don't want Barajas to be replaced with Barajas 2.0 (New and improved with more power! But just as many walks as before). I would have to agree more with Keith Law's placement of Arencibia in the 90's.

At long last we come to Cecil. Ranked at #72, first thing that comes to mind is WTFTHISSHITISBANANAS@#$@#$. I thought over this ranking for a while, and read over the Tao's post on Cecil, and I have concluded that it's pretty stupid to have Cecil so low. Yes I know he was a closer in college, and yes I know his innings are limited, but is there any other fault you can find with him? He has 2-3 plus pitches (depending on how his change up develops), he has no injury history that I can find, his K rates have been great (over 9K/9IP), his HR and BB rates have also been superb. It's tough to find any real faults with Cecil. I think the main reason why he's ranked so low, is because he's generally gone under the radar as compared to the likes of David Price, and Tommy Hanson.

Wells has started upon a mission to injure himself in every conceivable manner. Way to Injure Yourself #356: Light Movement of the Legs - Check.

With Wells sidelined for atleast a month, it would seem like the obvious solution to slide over Rios into CF, and allow Snider to play his natural position in RF. The Blue Jays management has decided to approach this difficult conundrum(word of the day!) in a slightly less conceivable way. Jose Bautista, the man who is -40.3 runs below average in CF in his career, will slide to his left about 45 feet and back about 150 feet, and take up the CF position. Lets think this over for a minute...

...


...

It's stupid.


I understand completely that Cito is trying to get everyone AB's, but playing a guy in a position he should never in over 9000 years be touching with a 100 foot pole is nearing insanity in my books. Why not let Inglett play some CF? I know its a small sample size, but at he's shown average/above average defence in the OF, maybe that can translate into some success for him this spring. And with Wells keeping himself injured so nicely, Im sure there will be at least a few opportunities for him to demonstrate his prowess out in one of the three OF spots.

To add more onto Bautista playing CF, why not give him some time at 1B? Overbay is out with his trio of hernias, and with any luck Cito will figure out a Bautibay platoon at 1B could create a half decent player this year.

Honestly, I'm all for getting guys AB's this spring, thats what it's for. Preparation. But the team needs to prepare both offensively and defensively, and that isn't going to happen buy having guys play a position they won't ever, ever play in a real game.

I'm all for optimism about this season and hoping the young guys perform, but at the same time the team needs to be smart in how they play the game of baseball

Spring training is upon us at last. The season is almost here. I can just feel it now.

Onto some actual news from the Dunedin...

1. Overbay has had not one, not two, but THREE surgeries for hernias. Why are we just hearing about this now?! As long as he can return to near 2006 form, I'll be happy. But still. He had the surgeries in January, and the news is JUST breaking now? Why was this kept so quiet by the Jays front office.

2. Travis Snider is currently Cito's starting LF. This excites me in places which I shouldn't discuss here, but scares me too.... Snider should NOT be rushed. I would prefer to have him start the year in Las Vegas, play there for a month, then come up and send HR's over the fence. In an ideal world this would be the case, but I don't think an ideal world includes Kevin Millar getting any real AB's either.

3. Snider is a tank.

4. Baseball happening again is incredibly refreshing, it feels like my life is complete once again.

More to come later as I get into this blogging thing. Check me out on the twitter too...

In the coming days I'll be profiling the current prospects that are in the Maple Leafs organization, so why not start with the most interesting case. Meet Mikhail Stefanovich currently in 7th QMJHL scoring with 28 goals in 36 games played(Yeah and the Leafs got him 98th overall. Say what?!). Many consider this guy the steal of the 08 draft along with other Leaf prospect Jimmy Hayes(more on him tomorrow). To me this guy has all the skills what he needs to work on is his consistency, and drive! Think Alexander Daigle type boom or bust potential. Skating needs work too especially acceleration but his hockey sense and ability to read the play really takes away from that!

Hey, guys I'll be taking care of the Leafs section on Bremner! I'll keep you updated on everything Leafs. From trades to prospects and everything in between. This season has been a tough one, but there are bright things ahead!

Oh why hello there.

If you've just so happened to stumble upon this humble sporting abode of ours, your probably going "wtf is diz yo!" Well, this is a sports blog. Not just any old sports blog - No, no no! no. This is a special blog just for our wonderful sporting teams in the grand city of Toronto. This is where the name Breakout on Bremner comes from. All sporting teams of any significance (no one like soccer), just so happen to play on a small little boulevard by the name of Bremner.

So, we hope you watch along, as we give you some epicly in depth analysis of sports, and epicly out there opinions