Oh. My. God.

Jason Allison making a comeback attempt.

Who says there's no hockey news in August?

CAREER POINTS:
552GP 154G 331A 485PTS

Demers a Senator

Not sure what this means for Clouston.

Battle of Ontario Pre-Season: Leafs 2 Ottawa 1 - Final

I'm not sure who is making decisions over at Upper Deck, nor that we should take them all that seriously, but our blog needs a post and I found this story.

You are reading correctly. Of the players chosen for Upper Deck rookie cards, two of them are Leafs; Jared Cowan was the lone Senator.

Here is the complete list (as near as I can tell) of Upper Deck rookies:
John Tavares, Long Island; Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay; Matt Duchene, Colorado; Colin Wilson, Nashville; Tyler Bozak and Jonas Gustavsson, Toronto; Jared Cowen, Ottawa; P.K. Subban, Montreal; Bobby Sanguinetti, New York Rangers; Logan Couture, San Jose; Mikael Backlund, Calgary; Eric Tangradi, Pittsburgh; James Van Riemsdyk, Philadelphia.

Brown

Dean Brown takes a look at the reduced role of Dany here.

Here is a very short list of some very good players who averaged less ice time than Heatley last season:

NHL Rank /Player/ TOI-GM
#32 Henrik Zetterberg 19:52
#33 Jordan Staal 19:50
#36 Jason Spezza 19:41
#37 Marc Savard 19:32
#40 Joe Thornton 19:27
#43 Alex Kovalev 19:25
#45 Alexander Semin 19:14
#46 Pavel Datsyuk 19:12
#60 Zach Parise 18:45

Heatley

I listened to the Heatley conference call, his scrum afterwards, and Bryan Murray's call.

He says his role was diminished since he signed his contract. I never saw it. He and Spezza signed those contracts after the cup run and you can see that their icetime - the key method a player can be given responsibility - have tracked very closely.

Heatley

Year	ES/G	SH/G	PP/G	Total
2006/7	15:17	0:45	4:59	21:01
2007/8	16:48	0:28	4:27	21:44
2008/9	15:38	0:22	4:05	20:06

Spezza

Year	ES/G	SH/G	PP/G	Total
2006/7	14:13	0:10	4:53	19:17
2007/8	15:59	0:19	4:20	20:40
2008/9	15:09	0:15	4:16	19:41

So if he thinks his role was diminished, does he think someone's role's been elevated? Obviously not Spezza. Alfredsson's role hasn't changed.

I think the reason he thinks he played a diminished role is that his numbers are diminished. The worst point production, shooting percentage, and plus/minus of his career since his rookie year.

Are things really looking up?

According to Howard Berger, Leaf fans can safely take the paper bags off their heads.

I dunno, I might just cut a mouth hole in mine so I can smoke.

Is this a better post?

Heatley will finally speak.

Sounds like he won't give any details, so I'm not sure what the point of this will be?

Chalk another one up for Ottawa.

Jim Balsille names Melnyk as one of the "crooked" owners that the NHL has a habit of welcoming to their fold.

Somebody should keep track of all these bad things happening to the Sens over the past two years. It would make for an incredibly satisfying coffee table book. Don't you think?

Another Prediction.

The time by THE SCORE FORECASTER.

NORTHEAST DIVISION
Boston
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal
Buffalo

Thanks to PPP for the heads up - you can go read the rest there.

THE SCORE also has the Leafs finishing 6th in the conference and yes, making the playoffs.

Special thanks to Heatley and Gainey!

Peddie avoids another lipreading fiasco...

For some folks, shutting the hell up is the best case scenario.

I love the Leafs hockey team and hockey people. I hate the owners and Richard Peddie.
Is that OK?

August 12th NHL Power Rankings!

No, seriously. Ross McKeon (how can you not believe a guy with Keon in his name?) has the latest power rankings and one side of the Battle of Ontario is going to be just slightly more pissed off than the other.

Read it (and weep) here.

The kids don't get it

Anshu pointed to this in the comments:

Teenage interest in NHL:
Ottawa 41% follow closely or very closely
Toronto 20% follow closely or very closely

The study also says this about adding teams in order to raise interest:
As a key part of their attractiveness, of course, those new teams need to be competitive and entertaining – shortcomings that have been particularly blatant in the case of the Maple Leafs.

Note that this survey was taken in late 2008 - before Wayne Primeau was added so I'm sure those Leaf numbers are way up now.

Pogge to Anaheim

Although not finalized, Leafs get a conditional pick back based on Pogge's play with the Ducks.

To fill out the Marlies goaltending void, Toronto will be signing Joey McDonald.

UPDATE:
Anaheim will send as high as a 3rd round draft pick if Pogge performs well, and as low as a 6th if he craps the bed sheets.

An entirely plausible scenario...

The most insightful nuggets are usually buried in comment threads. I like Dennis Prouse's assessment of why Heater ain't movin' over at TUC:

Eugene Melnyk is determined to show Dany Heatley who runs the show. Self-made men like Melnyk are typically very proud guys. Can you imagine how outraged Melnyk is over the fact that some 28 year old ingrate publicly peed on his shoes? I think that Melnyk has clearly instructed Murray to drive a hard bargain for Heatley in part because he WANTS him to have to come back to Ottawa, tail between his legs. If he dares hold out for even a day, the grievance will be filed so fast it will make your head spin.

For the love of all things holy....

Please be true.