Burning Times in Leaf Nation

Alex Ponikarovsky will enjoy his stay in Pittsburgh, even though that stay might be relatively short. The playoffs loom large for the Penguins and expectations are high. Ponikarovsky has a contribution to make there for sure. The change of scenery and the change in hockey mentality will likely impact the way he plays, and probably make him better. He never did live up to expectations in Toronto, though he did fare better than Nik Antropov. I’m a little disappointed in what we got back for him.

Burke’s purge of Europeans has real traction now. That’s 7 of them gone in the last year: Ponikarovsky, Nik Antropov, Anton Stralman, Pavel Kubina, Jiri Tlusty, Niklas Hagman, Vesa…. Vesa…… oh right, Vesa Toskala. That’s his name. Almost slipped my mind.

Carolina has been surging lately. Last night’s whipping of the Buds came as no surprise. The cane’s are still hungry and only 8 points back of a playoff spot. Not great odds, but mathematically possible. No quit there.

The Leafs fly out to Boston for a game against the Bruins tomorrow night – the first in a 3 game road trip with stops in Philly and Ottawa before coming home to a rematch against the Bruins on the 9th. While I think Burke may still have a couple of items left up his sleeve for TSN’s rabid, motor-mouth Trade Center, I don’t think there are any surprises in store.

These are the Burning Times in Toronto. It can’t get much worse. While it can get much better, there are still many fires in the time between this and that. There’s 20 games left on the schedule. Even if we won all 20 we’d still have only 89 points. This will likely be one of the worst seasons on the books… ever.

== sigh==