CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — A little gallows humour by Ron Wilson on Friday, waving his sharp skate blade at the gathered media and warning he would “go Edward Scissorhands on someone” if he didn’t like the first question.
But it has to be asked: What do the Maple Leafs do with their last 30 games rendered almost meaningless, facing a fifth straight year out of the playoffs, with half the team on its way out as unrestricted free agents and many contracted talent playing their way out of favour with coach Wilson and general manager Brian Burke?
They certainly could do Burke a favour at and at least pass a few teams on the lower rungs to get the boss out of lottery pick trouble when Boston gets around to announcing its first choice with Toronto’s ticket. Burke will be sitting in on the club’s pro scouting convention in nearby Fort Lauderdale the next two days, blazing any trade paths for the March 3 deadline and doing due diligence on the whole NHL free agent auction in July.
For Wilson, who brought his shaken team to a palm-shaded practice rink here after a meltdown in Tampa Bay on Thursday, there was lots to take their mind off their plight, significant line changes, a welcome back for John Mitchell after his first game as a healthy scratch and perhaps a Jeff Finger sighting on defence, all possibilities for Saturday against the Panthers, concluding the road trip from hell.
Reality is setting in, with just 30 games to play, the Leafs 10 points out, knowing even 20 wins won’t get them the 85 to 90 points minimum for the eighth Eastern Conference playoff berth. If this killer instinct is there, it was needed against the two conference rivals that were beatable on this trip, Atlanta and Tampa, games with blown leads and unruly play that yielded one overtime point.
The Leafs are back to wishing on a star for a spectacular six-team train wreck down the tracks so they can catch up. Just like the past four springs, it’s not going to happen.
“The math is daunting, but we’re not giving up hope,” Wilson said. “We’ll have a lot more games at home (17) and even though we’re not .500 there (9-10-5), we’ve played pretty well and that’s where we’re going to make up hay.”
If there are experiments when the gap in the standings gets too wide, Wilson has already said that Jonas Gustvasson’s workload in net will increase, based on outplaying Vesa Toskala in recent games. The rotation on this trip has ended, with Gustavsson starting again against Florida.
“I don’t think you have to be a rocket scientist to look at save percentage, wins and goal-against averages,” Wilson noted.
Convinced that Niklas Hagman is coming out of his scoring slump, he’s going on Tyler Bozak’s left side, a bid to give the rookie centre two snipers to boost confidence. Any other boy wonders who merit a promotion from the Marlies would follow in February and March.
Hagman bumps sophomore Nikolai Kulemin, but only to Wayne Primeau’s line where the prospective Russian Olympian can further expand his improving two-way game.
Wilson didn’t punish winger Alexei Ponikarovsky, either by benching him Thursday night after his hissy fit led to the second of two minors, or bag skating him Friday. Another coach would have chained the winger to the bench.
“I told him to get out there and make it up to his teammates,” Wilson said. “He’s one of our better players and no one felt worse than him. Sitting down a guy with 18 goals (on a team where no one has 20) makes no sense.”
Wilson did his public fire and brimstone speech a few days ago, zeroing in on Phil Kessel, who has since put together a team-high seven-game points streak. But for now, Wilson is only showing the media the pointy end of the blade.
“The only thing we can do wrong is stop pushing and stop playing,” Ponikarovsky said. “We have to hope for the best.”
