Yeah, I agree about Ryder sure his confidence is lost a little but I say put him back in this high energy high pressure environment and let him prove some critics wrong. Biron is playing very good and Price is showing some inconsistencies so I think Halak is good enough to win the next game I would rest Price for another game.
I predict Dallas vs Detroit but I haven’t seen how they matched up in the regular season. I like both teams but I almost get the feeling that Detroit might not be the harder working team and I think Dallas may be able to upset them. I am writing off San Jose, I like their team but you can’t expect them to be good to go after a tough 7 game series against Calgary. The winner of that series I thought was going to have problems against their next opponent.
Pittsburgh is a fun team to watch and I think they will beat Rangers especially with this 2-0 lead but at the start of the series I thought Rangers had a good chance to upset them.
I stopped caring for the Maple Leafs right after Scotty Bowman said on Hockey Night in Canada that he was interested in the job and then later in the summer Peddie told him they were not interested. I mean they hire JFJ but don’t let him run things his way and you know Peddie had some influence on some of the deals. I don’t think JFJ was that bad and I really don’t know who was responsible for McCabe and Kubina deals. Hiring Fletcher as a patch job was just plain stupid, he trades away players for draft picks and who ends up representing the Leafs at the Draft? They expect this guy to make short term changes and setup a shot for another GM to come in and do the job. Very irresponsible. How would I change the Leafs? Well it starts w/ a new GM and fortunately there are good people in place. I like Nonis, I think Burke is interested but the timing is just off and it’s tough to hire someone for just 1 year. Maybe Nonis and then next year make him assistant to Burke. Armstrong I don’t think is a bad guy for the job either.
I will put the above Leafs discussion to rest, I will go on and on and only get frustrated about it. I do like and respect teams that do things right and the Leafs sure as hell are not it. Philly is stacked with talent, so is Nashville and I would say the same for Chicago.