The Maple Leafs extended their losing streak to four games with a 5-1 defeat in Calgary on Tuesday night. The club dug themselves an early hole, allowing the Flames to take a 2-0 lead on goals by Alex Tanguay and Olli Jokinen before most of the patron’s seats were warm. Tyler Bozak, who may have been the best Leaf on the night, beat Miikka Kiprusoff late in the first to narrow the gap to 2-1, but the Finnish backstop was perfect for the rest of the night, making 41 saves.
Toronto on the other hand got an inconsistent effort from Jonas Gustavsson, who was a victim of his team’s shoddy defensive work early in the game, settled down and made some big saves to keep the game close, but then yielded a penalty shot goal to light scoring Paul Byron. Late goals by Blake Comeau and Jerome Iginla made the score slightly misrepresentative, but the hometown Flames were clearly the better team on the ice and had things well in hand most of the night.
The wheels appear to have come off the Leafs in the last week. They often appear disorganized in the defensive zone and last night was not able to corral the Flames only viable offensive threat, the line of Iginla, Jokinen and Tanguay, who scored three of their five goals. Toronto has been outscored 16-5 over the course of their losing streak and all five goals have come from the Kessel-Lupul-Bozak line.
The Leafs play the second of back-to-back games in the province of Alberta against the youthful and talented Edmonton Oilers tonight. Keith Aulie will start tonight in place of Mike Komisarek and will be paired with Dion Phaneuf, who he enjoyed success with last season.
Will update when the goalie for tonight’s game is announced, but it looks like James Reimer would get the start.
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The details on where Blue Jackets star Rick Nash is willing to go is slowly coming to light to NHL insiders. TSN’s Darren Dreger stated yesterday that the Philadelphia Flyers and possibly the Detroit Red Wings would be possible destinations, others such as Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek and Yahoo’s Greg Wyshynski state that teams like Boston or Vancouver have the organizational depth and pieces to make a legitimate offer for the 27 year old winger.
According to the Columbus Dispatch’s Aaron Portzline, the list could be relatively short and it does include Nash’s hometown team:
The Blue Jackets contacted Nash and his agent, Toronto-based Joe Resnick, over the weekend, asking if Nash would be willing to waive his no-movement clause to facilitate a trade.
True to his words to The Dispatch last month, Nash said he would not stand in the way of a trade if management thought it would improve the Blue Jackets. He supplied the club with a list of teams — no more than 10, a source said — to which he would approve a trade.
“I’m a Blue Jacket right now,” Nash said yesterday as the team prepared to play host to the St. Louis Blues in Nationwide Arena. “I’ve played my whole career here, and it’s a special place to me. So, as of right now, I’m a Blue Jacket.”
Among the clubs believed to be interested are the New York Rangers, Los Angeles, San Jose, Toronto and Montreal.
Portzline also indicated that the decision by the Blue Jackets hierarchy to shop Nash is part of a larger plan to possibly reorganize the roster by trading veterans like Jeff Carter, RJ Umberger, Derick Brassard, Antoine Vermette and Sammy Pahlsson and starting a rebuild centered around youngsters like Ryan Johansen and possibly the first pick in the NHL Draft this June.
It is literally a crap shoot to determine whether a) a move will happen on or before February 27th and b) which team will win the bidding war. There has been too many rumors linking the Leafs and Nash to not think that GM Brian Burke would not be trying to get him, but there are varying opinions of whether Toronto has the assets available to get the deal done.
According to AM640’s Bill Watters, he has learned that the rumored Toronto-Columbus deal mentioned on his Twitter account a few weeks back (for those who do not remember, it was Luke Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Mikhail Grabovski and Mike Komisarek for Nash and Kristian Huselius) “appears now to be a Blue Jackets request and not a Toronto offer.”
If you base the cost on the rumored proposal involving the Rangers(Brandon Dubinsky, prospect Chris Kreider and likely a first round pick), Toronto would be in the game, but many insiders seem to think that the Jackets want to get a premier young goaltender in the deal, which would teams like LA with Jonathan Bernier or Vancouver with Corey Schneider the upper hand.
The Columbus fire sale could have ramifications for the Leafs even if they do not get Nash. Both Carter and Umberger have hefty long term deals, a fact that will make it more difficult for the Jackets to move and less costly for interested teams to obtain and vets like Pahlsson have prior connections to Burke in Anaheim.
One thing can be said for certain, what looked like a rather mundane trade deadline has all of sudden become very interesting.
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