Rigamarole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 5.27

www.afootinthecrease.com

So the Toronto Maple Leafs just keep rolling along. A perfect week of three wins in three games gave them seven wins in their last nine games and now finally, the Leafs can entertain hopes of actually catching some teams ahead of them. And you know what that means, devaluing of the first round pick held by the Boston Bruins.

As a result of their recent hot stretch that began soon after the NHL resumed from the Olympic break, the Leafs now sit within four points of the Carolina Hurricanes for eleventh place in the Eastern Conference and within seven points of the New York Rangers for tenth. Between themselves and the Hurricanes sit the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders.

Down the stretch in their last ten games, the Leafs will play twice against the Rangers and once against the Panthers giving them even more of a hope at moving up. Additionally, these games will be “pressure games,” albeit it very much scaled down. The fact is though there will be something on the line in those games which will give Brian Burke and company a chance to assess how some of the youngsters perform under some degree of pressure.

And therein once again lays the problem. Is this surge any different than the last four seasons or is their real growth and development here? I tend to think it is different and that there is something to build on going forward because the surge is being led by the likes of Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel, Nik Kulemin, Luca Caputi and Dion Phaneuf – new youthful faces who are stepping up to make their mark and not older veterans who cruised through the first three quarters of the season, unable to produce when it mattered.

The next week should help to tell a better story with the game against the Panthers followed by games against the Atlanta Thrashers and New York Rangers – two teams fighting for their playoff lives. But hey, all that was just rigamarole.