Ok, it’s time to start banging the “Fire Wilson” drum in Toronto, much as many had wanted to “Fire Gibbons!” (John Gibbons that is) a couple years back. It’s not that I’m a bad person who normally wants people to get fired. But this guy is a multi-millionaire coach with 600+ wins in the NHL so he’s going to be fine. As for his status in Toronto, we need to get him out of here.
Another season has gone down the crapper for the Leafs; after starting 4-0-1 no less. Why are we counting the season over after 15 games? Because we’ve seen this sad tale before. Leafs play with promise; win a few games in a row, compete against the skilled teams, and fans rightfully get excited. But pit the Leafs against sad sack teams like the Islanders, Rangers, Lightning, Senators, and the Sabres without Ryan Miller and they flush the 2 points down the toilet. And seemingly every game the Leafs face the backup goalie on the other team only to be out goal-tended and lose! It’s a minor miracle the Leafs “escaped” their home ice game against “nice guy” Scott Clemmensen and the Panthers two weeks ago with two points. That was their only win in the past ten games. The last two goalies to stone wall the Leafs and teach J.S. Giguere a goaltending lesson have been Dan Ellis and Jhonas Enroth (coming in with a 9.00 GAA); hardly an encouraging sign.
So how much of this is the coach and how much of this is the players? How much of this is the general manager? Well the players are terrible obviously. They can’t score, they can’t sit back and defend because, well their defense sucks, and their goaltending has underperformed once again (forget about how the media is trumpeting about Giguere’s ‘solid play’ this season; when is the last time he actually was the better of the two goalies on the ice? Vesa Toskala was worshiped by the media his first year in Toronto which I never understood.) Yet there is Wilson, marching Giguere out there night after night; having started all but one of the past nine losses. So is it the players or the coach?
Is it Beauchemin’s fault for being a terrible defenseman or is it Wilson’s fault for running him out there for 25+ minutes a night? Or is it Brian Burke’s fault for signing him in the first place? Is it Kessel’s fault that he plays a selfish game on the ice and won’t do the little things to help the team win? Or is it Burke’s fault for selling the farm to get him (I finally acknowledge for the first time since the deal that it was a mistake). One thing is for sure; something needs to change. It sure as hell isn’t going to be Burke going; he’s going to be here for as long as he wants. Since he doesn’t want to fire his old frat buddy Wilson, he’s probably going to shake things up in the next few days with some type of player move. Kadri anyone?
The problem is, as much as everyone said in training camp that this is a new Leafs team from last year, and everyone pointed the finger at Matt Stajan et al. for the “Blue and White disease” which led to the 29th place finish; we are seeing the same things this year. A team that can’t score. A team that can’t defend. A team that can’t generate scoring chances on 5-on-3’s. Wilson is trying to win games in a manner that his players can’t. Other teams with little to no talent can succeed by playing the defensive trapping strategy that ruins the game: see Boston, New York Rangers, so why can’t we? At this point we can’t blow up the team. We don’t have a first round pick next year. So there is only one thing to do – fire Wilson.
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