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Critical Juncture in Leaf's Tavares Hopes Has Arrived

John Tavares broke the record for most career goals in the OHL tonight, a record previously held by Peter Lee at 213. John came into the game tonight against the Windsor Spitfires with just two games remaining and one goal behind Peter Lee's total. He tied that marker early in the game. He then broke the record, and added another one for good measure.

Once again Leafs fans are reminded how poor our draft positioning is at the moment - that is, because we really want the first pick to secure Tavares. Sure, every team in the league would like John. But the Leafs really have nobody to turn to on offense to be that go-to guy. Sooner or later, John Tavares will be a that kind of player for an NHL franchise.

And this is why it's important that we lose, at least, our next three games. You see, the next three times the Leafs play will be against teams who are surefire top 10 draft pickers in this year's draft. At least two of these teams will be in the top five, and good money has all three of them in that prestigious group. Those teams being the Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders and Tampa Bay Lightning. If we can somehow lose to all three of these dreadful teams, we will be closing the gap on that last place spot.

Here's the rest of Toronto's Tavares Cup faceoffs:

March 9 - @ Ottawa
March 10 - vs. New York Islanders
March 12 - vs. Tampa Bay
March 17 - @ Tampa Bay
April 11 - Ottawa

Not a whole lot of opportunity left for us set up other Tavares Cuppers to leap-frog us.

We might have to do it ourselves. We're surely poised to do it, seeing how depleted our defensive core is looking, and the challenging matchups we face down the stretch.

We can hope to lose to the following teams:
Calgary (1 game)
Florida (1 game)
Montreal (2 games)
Buffalo (2 games)
Washington (1 game)
Philadelphia (2 games)
Boston (1 game)
New Jersey (1 game)

A good solid 11 losses in total. Should help the cause.

So in the best case scenario, with us losing all TC matchups as well, we go 0-16 from here on in. If we did that, the last place Islanders would need to go 7-7-1 to catch us.

There's a small margin for error, and we also have to keep in mind that the other bottom dwellers could take the 30th too, but there's always hope.

If you don't like seeing the Leafs lose, I'm sorry to break your heart. It's true that it's nice to see the Leafs get rewarded for their efforts.

But I'd much rather the Leafs draft a franchise forward and put this futile season behind them, right now.

1 COMMENTS:

Anonymous said...

couldn't agree more.