<%=siteName%>

By HOWARD BERGER

TORONTO (Oct. 2) — News flash: Jeff Finger’s “minor” foot problem has been down-graded to moderate, and he’ll miss the first week to ten days of the regular season.

How shocking it is that the Maple Leafs have publicly underestimated an injury to one of their players. Ron Wilson is quickly falling in line with those that have preceded him in recent years, and the act is again transparent. The only area in which the Leafs are more inept than winning games is issuing “news” about injuries. Paul Maurice repeatedly made himself look like an idiot [which he isn’t] during his two-year term as coach of the club. Kyle Wellwood had a “slight” groin problem; Carlo Colaiacovo’s knee required “just a bit of rest”… and on it went.

Clearly, Maurice was speaking at the behest of then-GM John Ferguson, who would neither confirm nor deny that he’d been born. But, it didn’t help Paul’s cause, or the team’s.

Now, it’s Wilson playing the “let’s lie about injuries” game inherent to his profession, but likely not on behalf of Cliff Fletcher, whose basic honesty has been the hallmark of a long NHL career. Wilson happily obfuscates on his own, as everyone knows how beneficial such strategy has been for the Leafs over the years. Just think: If Maurice had somehow risked being truthful with reporters about injuries last season, the Leafs might have finished 13th in the Eastern Conference instead of all the way up at 12th. We dread the mere thought of it.

The bottom line is no amount of trickery can fully disrupt the truth. Wilson, Maurice, and Pat Quinn beforehand might be able to delay factual information about injuries, but people are more than willing to squawk behind the scenes. Just about any player will fess up to a familiar reporter – off the record – about a particular ailment, as will most employees on a team’s medical staff.

That’s why, in my own experience, I stood firm a couple of years ago on the inescapable fact that Eric Lindros required his torn wrist ligament to be operated on, despite blanket denials from all sides. It’s the reason I confronted Quinn after a Leafs’ practice in Denver in January, 2006 about Bryan McCabe’s groin “strain” actually being a slight groin “tear” – as I was informed behind the scenes. To Quinn’s credit, he didn’t further the deception. It’s the reason I wrote and spoke about Wellwood’s chronic groin issue after his first operation in early 2007. “No way,” claimed the Leafs. “It’s just a one-time event.” Two more surgeries in less than a calendar year turned the chicanery into silence.

This isn’t to pound my chest. As I said, any reporter willing to do a bit of extra work behind the scenes can cut through the medical baloney issued by managers and coaches. And, many have. It’s just that I’ve never figured why hockey people expend such energy on fudging injury data. There isn’t a documented case of this deception helping or hindering a professional sports club. No team with sub-standard personnel has ever achieved beyond its means by lying about injuries. Similarly, no great team has gone into the dumper by speaking honestly about medical issues. It’s a myth – nothing more – but it’s one of the few ways coaches believe they can fight back against the dastardly media. In reality, they cannot. Fibbing about injuries is a futile stab at controlling the uncontrollable.

Accordingly, you can probably forget seeing Pavel Kubina or Nikolai Kulemin in the line-up when the Leafs begin the regular season. On Wednesday, in St. Louis, Wilson claimed both players are sidelined “a week to 10 days” with knee problems. If Wilson is anywhere close to the “accuracy” with which the Leafs have embarrassed themselves in recent years, neither Kubina nor Kulemin will suit up until late-October.

This subject drives fans of the Blue & White around the bend, primarily because they want to be treated with honesty and respect by the team they have so loyally followed through the years. And, really, they deserve nothing less. Understanding, however, that they’ve long been played for fools by the Leafs, it is met with a shrug when injury nonsense is filtered through the media… their only link to the hockey club. Without recourse, fans vent their anger on the messengers, oddly choosing to align with those at the root of the deception.

Whenever I broach the topic of the Leafs lying about injuries, hate-mail quickly floods my in-box. When I ask readers to offer a solitary example of such deceit helping the club, replies are non-existent. 

NOTES: With Finger and Kubina hobbling, rookie Luke Schenn will definitely be in the Leafs’ opening-night line-up next Thursday in Detroit – perhaps to stay. Schenn only has to remain healthy through the final weekend of exhibition games. Though there’s an inherent, proven hazard in rushing 18-year-old players into the NHL, Schenn has simply been the club’s best defenseman in training camp, and Wilson is probably correct in surmising that he’ll learn nothing particularly valuable by returning to junior. Schenn plays an uncomplicated but essential role with his poise, strength and reach in the defensive zone. The Leafs have no one that even resembles him… Curtis Joseph has earned a layer of deference after almost two decades of mostly splendid performance in the NHL, but it is blatantly delusional to pin the disaster in St. Louis Wednesday night on his teammates. True, he was accorded minimal protection, but when was he adequately insulated during his brilliant first tenure with the Leafs? Truth is Cujo had nothing in his brief appearance against the Blues, who easily beat him high to the blocker side while scoring six goals on only 12 shots [.500 is a wonderful average in baseball, not in hockey]. And, it at least brings into question Joseph’s ability – at 41 years of age – to withstand long stretches of inactivity this season while backing up Vesa Toskala. I’ve often said – and I’ll repeat – that the No. 2 netminder’s role in hockey is the most available of all commodities, and the most undervalued…  NHL GMs have smartened up after the media frenzy at their annual late-season gathering last February in Naples Fla. The meeting occurred less than a week before the trade deadline and reporters flooded the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in search of rumored deals. But, only one tangible report surfaced, courtesy of the Ottawa Sun’s enterprising columnist, Bruce Garrioch, who nailed the Tomas Kaberle to Philadelphia swap for Jeff Carter and a first-round draft choice. Kaberle, of course, nullified the trade by exercising his no-movement clause. This year, the GMs will assemble in Naples the week after the trade deadline, thereby saving Canadian media outlets untold thousands of dollars… As eager as he is to mix it up, Leafs’ forward Ryan Hollweg is desperately miscast as a fighter. Hollweg’s head has been on a platter throughout the preseason schedule, as he drops the gloves against bigger opponents [which is just about anyone among the league’s scrappers]. Providing he can reverse his penchant for taking dumb penalties, Ryan’s on-ice demeanor will come in handy. But, the Leafs absolutely must find a player to remove from him the onus to fight… I like what I’m seeing from first-year Leafs Niklas Hagman and Mikhail Grabovski, though I sense Grabovski is too small to flourish as a full-time centreman on either of the top two lines. It’s a role that Nik Antropov and Matt Stajan will ultimately have to fill, unless Fletcher can obtain another large pivot. But, Grabovski has excellent offensive instinct and will almost certainly boost the Toronto powerplay in the coming season… When I spoke with Fletcher in St. Louis, he did not deny the report uncovered by TSN’s Darren Dreger that he talked shop with Anaheim. Fletcher and Brian Burke discussed the possibility of the Ducks exchanging top-level prospect Bobby Ryan and veteran defenseman Mathieu Schneider for a conditional first-round pick next June. For Fletcher, of course, this was all about Ryan, as Schneider would have been a salary-dump accessory. The deal reportedly protected the Leafs from yielding their first pick if it falls within the top five selections. And, that’s a fair return for a player of Ryan’s potential. The NHL is watching any movement between Toronto and Anaheim warily amid the on-going speculation that Burke will replace Fletcher as Leafs’ GM once his contract with the Ducks expires next summer… The Leafs will officially unveil their old/new third jersey next Monday. As outlined earlier in this space, it will be a virtual replica of the alternate design the club has worn since 1998 – matching the mid-‘60s white road jersey with blue shoulder-piping and the legendary, 35-point blue Maple Leafs logo on the front.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.