Beat Me In St. Louis

It was over before it started. The roster was missing a bunch of's
(Kubina, Kaberle, Kulemin, Kola, Klake, Kantro, Koni, ketc.), and the
troopers left to put their finger in the dyke got them bruised when
they were punched in the nose repeatedly.

The face of facts:-
Joseph was overpowered by mid-speed shots. Redirects were slam-
dunks. His chuckling with the ref midway through the first was
another one of those don'ts that Cujo does.

Hollweg needs to be put under lock n key - his 'competitive energy' is
the far side of masochism. Somebody's knuckles are going to get hurt.

D- Petiot isn't ready. Frogren isn't ready. In fact the only guy
that's looking steady on the left side of the D is Luke Schenn. This
could be a difficult decision of the not-so-good variety.

Pogge was the best Leaf (even tho Mitchell snagged the game's 3rd
star). Mitchell is making a case to stay up on RW. They're so
exposed there that his combo - upside on the wing, experience, and
ability at ctr - could be the edge.

They didn't look fast, or when they did they missed the destination.
They didn't look organized. They didn't look competitive. No nod to
the coaching - there should have been a calm-down timeout after the
2-0 introduction.

On Oct 2, 1:31 pm, "J Stevens" <IdontLikeSpamjay-
stev... DeleteThis @telus.netspamsucksass> wrote:

> The only saving grace to that game is that the "star players" weren't playing.

Re-spin on that was Wilson wanted the bubble players to face worst-
case scenarios to separate the men from the juniors.

> We can pretend that it wasn't REALLY the Leafs playing last night.

There's some slack there - St. Louis had close to their starting
lineup out. Then again, if the starting lineup for St. Louis can sink
the ship in less than 10 minutes ...

> It seemed Cujo was down early and the goals were going in over his right
> shoulder. Except that one that went in off his foot.
> Sure the D left him all alone, but he's got to stop one of those breakaway
> goals!

His own admission was "R"usty. However, the big point is he has a job
assignment that needs rust-free ready. From here, he flunked big
time. He's now let in the first SOG two games in a row.

> Pogge let another weak, late 3rd period goal in. He looked great until then.

That wasn't a weak goal - that was a fart that got through the cheek-
squeeze.

> It's only pre-season (I keep telling myself)
> Maybe Wilson wanted to see how or if they'd recover without having to call a
> time out and slap them all on the wrist?

Guys tried to get the game stoppage with more fighting - and the refs
put a start to the game.

Other coaches would have called a timeout at the 2-0 mark and given
them wakeup messages. It doesn't seem to be part of the Toronto
coaching toolkit anymore, does it?