to be honest, phaneuf's play, his numbers, were all actually pretty good (he was amongst the +/- best amongst the eastern conference till quite late in the year before the leaf plunge).
He's not a #1 guy, but if you take #1 guy type money home, are the captain of the leafs, you just can't be average, and he has been (flat out bad over the past month). There is more wrong with the leafs than just #3. Their play with the puck in their own zone is oiler'esque. it really feels as though one in every two breakout passes go to the opposition's forecheckers.
I am really curious what the leafs do with their dcore this summer. ranger's gotta go, gunnarson is quite hit or miss, and then they have some skillset redundancy in reilly and gardiner who aren't great defensive players but can bring a boatload of offensive opportunity through their skating and vision.
pretty content with the leaf meltdown. Nonis is just a terrible GM. he sucked in vancouver, and since burke left TO, he has made a team that looked to being on the path to improvement be one of the biggest failure stories of the NHL season.
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