Leafs Sign NCAA prospect Christian Hanson

Posted by Parth Pandya on 10:03 AM comments (0)



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!!

Prospects Leafs Should Target: Kevin Shattenkirk

Posted by Parth Pandya on 5:22 PM comments (0)


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!

Posted by Parth Pandya on 8:43 PM comments (0)

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!

Ronnie Wilson Gets the Boot.

Posted by Parth Pandya on 9:15 PM comments (0)

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.

Mike Van Glass Out for the Season.

Posted by Parth Pandya on 2:51 PM comments (1)


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.

Getcha popcorn ready Toronto/Buffalo!

Posted by Parth Pandya on 10:12 AM comments (0)


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?

Battle of Ontario..?

Posted by Parth Pandya on 9:58 AM comments (0)



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 & Halladay Trade Speculations (WBC Announcers Suck)

Posted by Nick on 8:18 PM comments (0)



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.

Canada Vs. USA

Posted by Nick on 7:52 AM comments (0)


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..."

Happy Birthday Mills!

Posted by Nick on 8:18 PM comments (0)


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

Busy day, busy day, busy day!

Posted by Parth Pandya on 2:30 PM comments (0)

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.

Nik Antropov Tribute.



Dominic Moore Stickless Breakaway


Moore and Antropov out of the lineup.

Posted by Parth Pandya on 1:30 PM comments (0)



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.

Leclaire to TO?

Posted by Parth Pandya on 9:20 AM comments (0)

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.

Burke on AM 640: Leafs Lunch

Posted by Parth Pandya on 12:53 PM comments (0)





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.

It's Rumor Time!

Posted by Parth Pandya on 8:27 PM comments (0)


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.

Lol wut?

Posted by Nick on 9:27 AM comments (2)



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.

Leafs vs. Senators

Posted by Parth Pandya on 8:00 AM comments (1)


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.