Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A game so bad the crowd wouldn’t even boo




Having seen it all by now, Toronto Maple Leaf fans have probably built up immunity to horrid play, but even their resolve must have been surely tested on Tuesday as the hometown heroes dropped an 8-0 loss to the Florida Panthers.

As two of the least successful teams in the East met up at the Air Canada Centre and by games end, the Florida Panthers were looking like Stanley Cup Champions, while the Leafs resembled a rather shell shocked pee wee team, clearly out of their depth and more than willing to roll over and let the Panthers have the win.

It was a hard to watch exercise for the Leafs faithful, who probably were wondering why there were so many scouts in the building, as any player in a blue and white jersey probably should just be thankful to still have a job, let alone be marketable as trade bait.

The scouts were said to be in attendance to watch Mats Sundin and Florida’s Olli Jokinen, both captains are said to have been shopped around in recent weeks. Though with Florida on the verge of keeping their hopes for a playoff berth alive by capturing the Southeast title, it seems hard to believe the Panthers would trade away their top player.

For the Leafs It was basically the same team that defeated the Senators this weekend past (which may say more about the Sens lack of resolve these days than any highlight film might) and now they couldn’t score a goal against one of the worst teams in the East. Things became so bad on the ice that the fans began to cheer the Panther goals, having decided that the smattering of boos that it seems is traditional at Leafs games now wasn’t worth the energy.

A wise Leaf would be one to avoid the newspapers and the blogs for the next few days, one would think that the rumours will be fast and furious and the comments won’t be particularly enjoyable.

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