In A World of Sports

This has got to be one of the worst weeks in recent memory for Toronto sports franchises.  Sure the rest of the week hasn’t even played itself out, but if you count from Sunday afternoon to this coming Sunday, this should amount to a tragic week.  This is one of the darkest hours for Toronto sports as a whole in a long time, but with the bad also comes the good.  So here is a recap of the bad, with a look at what is good in the world of Toronto sports.

 Blue Jays 

The Bad – Reed Johnson is cut purely for financial reasons.  We gave up a solid all-round outfielder for Shannon Stewart who throws like my sister, and that’s being mean to my sister.  I don’t like this move.  I don’t know anyone who does.

Almost as a kick from karma for letting Johnson go, Scott Rolen breaks a finger and will miss anywhere from 2 weeks to a month.  I’m leaning more on the month side. This injury news coming short on the heals of Casey Janssen being shut down for the season, BJ Ryan having elbow pain (they are bringing him back way too early) and AJ Burnett having finger nail issues.  Sure that’s not all in the same week, but it’s all injury related. 

The Doc also got shelled in his last spring training outing.  If spring training is any indication of how the season is going to go, it will be an extremely long season for the Blue Jays.

The Good – The return of baseball means the return of spring.  Spring means good weather.  Good weather means summer is coming.  And summer means BBQ.

 The Raptors 

The Bad – Well it happened.  The fear of the Raptors falling far enough to avoid running into the Cavaliers was a good thing, but with a loss on Sunday coupled with a 76ers win over the Celtics, they have fallen too far which is a bad thing.  If the playoffs started today the Raps would face Detroit and I don’t know if that’s better or worse for the Raptors than facing Cleveland, but either way it is an almost foregone conclusion that they will be eliminated in the first round. 

Moreover, The Raptors continue to struggle to close out games late.  I went to the Denver game and my buddy Roncken and we were thinking that maybe the Raps could pull off an upset at the end of the first half.  With over 5 minutes remaining, The Nuggets were in the penalty, the Raps had a lead, and plenty of foul flexibility, and we were pretty happy.  I can’t remember any Raptor getting to the line in the last 5 minutes of the game.  It was bad. The turning point was when Moon’s block was called a foul and Melo sunk those free throws. 

This team is mentally weak, they are the NBA equivalent of the Ottawa Senators to me.  One bad call or bounce swings the momentum completely away from Toronto too easily.  Without mental fortitude this team can’t improve beyond the season it had last year anytime soon.

The Good – The Raptors still have 12 games left to try and fix this mess.  Bosh called out his teammates to compete harder (good move), and they are still going to the post-season.  Really there isn’t much good in world of the Raptors right now, but they can only go up right?  Right?

 The Leafs 

The Bad – The Leafs lost last night basically eliminating themselves from the playoffs.  Some would consider this a bad thing, including my buddy Sachin who I went to the game with last night.  So I put it under the bad.  So the Leafs are out, not mathematically but they really stand no chance and haven’t for weeks, AND they screwed themselves on the Stamkos sweepstakes.  They are positioned well to draft 10^th or so in the first round of this year’s draft.  Me, I think it’s good because the Leafs should not be in the playoffs.  They were exposed this year as a team that hasn’t been built well for many many years but had its short-comings covered up by free agent spending.  Under the cap system, the Leafs lack of direction and vision for this club have been revealed and it has come back to bite them 3 straight years now.  So there is silver lining even to “the bad”.  The Leafs can finally try and BUILD something.  I want them to miss the playoffs 4 or 5 more years in a row, draft (hopefully well), and give Toronto a team we can actually like and have legitimate hopes for.

The Good – The Leafs can still play spoiler.  They can beat Boston on Thursday and do their part in not only helping an exciting team, The Capitals, make it into the post-season for the first time in the Ovechkin era, but they can also help Ovechkin win his first Hart trophy.

For the record I still don’t understand the case against Ovechkin, regardless of whether or not The Caps make the playoffs.  Ovechkin has been the best player bar-none all year.  He is dragging the Caps towards the playoffs on his own.  He has set the NHL on fire with the first 60 goal season in years.  And not the most valuable to his team?  Are you kidding me?  Ovechkin puts bums in the seats in Washington.  If he weren’t on the team, not only would they be dead last in the league, the arena would be empty, the Caps would have to pay people to show up.  Ovechkin puts bums in seats of the arenas he visits too for that matter.  Sure Malkin has had a great year, but most of his attention has been since Crosby went out.  During the span without Crosby out, and including the three games he briefly returned for, Malkin has 50 points in 32 games.  That’s 1.56 points per game.  Why isn’t anyone talking about Staal stepping up with all the injuries in Carolina, particularly Rod Brind’Amour.  He is doing the same thing as Malkin, but without the glamour.  Staal has 28 points in 18 games which is…oh my goodness, 1.56 points per game.  This also comes on a team that gave up on themselves a couple months ago, making the trade with Ottawa to help build more for the future.  They wrote themselves out of the playoffs a long time ago but Staal has stepped up and he’s gotten them into the postseason, with the 3^rd seed too.

But back to Alexander the Great vs. Malkin, because Staal isn’t an MVP candidate, even though the argument that everyone is making for Malkin could be made for Staal as well.  Ok, so Malkin is putting up amazing numbers, but he hasn’t necessarily been more important to Pittsburgh’s winning ways without Sid as Ty Conklin was, who over that same stretch was arguably the best goalie in the league.  Just look at how many game winning goals Malkin has this year: 3.  Three game winners is not an MVP amount.  In fact that’s down around the bottom of the pack when it comes to the studs of the league.  Ryan Malone has 6 game winners leading the Penguins, and Sid the kid has 4, despite missing all that time with the high ankle sprain.  So what about that other Russian, number 8 on Washington?  Well he has a tidy 10 game winners leading all NHL scorers, one more than Iggy and, believe it or not, Jeremy Roenick who each have 9.  For the record, Staal, the guy putting up Malkin like numbers sans Brind’Amour, has 7 game winners.

Are you kidding me?  This isn’t even close.  Malkin deserves consideration, but he, among with any other candidate, is a distant second to Ovechkin.  As for the argument for The Caps not making the playoffs?  Yes, making the playoffs is a very important factor, the most important factor, but the precedent has been set with Lemieux when he won the Hart in his 199 point season for the last place Pens.  This is a year where no one else has stood out like Ovechkin, whether or not they are on the best team, or the worst. And in a year where the best player in the league, and most valuable player TO the league (with Crosby hurt there’s not doubt it’s Ovechkin) has his team fighting for the playoffs even this late into March is the Art Ross winner, the Rocket Richard winner, the Hart winner, and the Lester B. Pearson winner. Bar none.

That was an awesome tangent.  But this is my hope for the Leafs this year, win one more game, this Thursday against the Bruins and help Ovechkin and The Capitals.  This is the good news for the Leafs, that in a year as bad as this, they can still make me happy by beating the Bruins on Thursday night in Boston.