Rigamarole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 2.19

www.afootinthecrease.com

Over a long NHL season, there will understandably be times where teams will not be at their best. Some nights, the scoring may go south; other nights, the defense could be porous and at times, the goaltending might be an issue. However, you hope that as the season goes on, there are not too many of those types of nights. The Maple Leafs, this season, have gone through a few dry spells and have seen enough defensive blunders from Bryan McCabe and friends, but recently it’s become pretty clear that the Maple Leafs are starting to lose too many games because of goaltending.

Now neither Head Coach Paul Maurice nor his teammates have singled out Andrew Raycroft as the primary reason for losses of late, though Maurice did call on one of his netminders to step up and be the guy a few weeks ago. You are not going to hear coaches ripping their goaltenders in the media, unless you are a fan of the Tampa Bay Lightning and have to put up with listening to John Tortorella. It simply creates too much dissension in the dressing room. However it doesn’t mean that goaltending is not the reason a team is losing.

The Maple Leafs have been blessed with all star netminding since the arrival of Felix Potvin in the early ‘90’s. Potvin gave way to Curtis Joseph who later handed the torch to Ed Belfour. So far Andrew Raycroft has not lived up to the legacy left by his predecessors. So often in years past, goaltenders would consistently steal games for the Maple Leafs. Fans would continue to complain about what we would do if we didn’t have Potvin or Joseph or Belfour standing on their heads. Well now we are starting to get a taste of what it’s like without reliable netminding. Not once this year has Andrew Raycroft stolen a game. It has got to the point where the Maple Leafs are starting to lose games they played well in because of their goaltending. You can’t expect to be successful when that is the case. But hey, all that was just rigamarole.