Leafs won!? Another comeback from down 2-0

Different Leafs in 08-09? (Rick says the Leafs are so terrible, but I'm sure House is excited about this one...)

The New York Rangers-Toronto Maple Leafs tilt at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night was the type of game the Leafs would have lost last season.

The NHL-leading Rangers were up 2-0 with under ten minutes left in the final period, having scored with 9.3 ticks left in the first and added another goal late in the second.

Rookie Leafs center John Mitchell went to the penalty box at the 10:10 mark of the third, and Toronto looked dead, especially with Steve Valiquette in the Rangers goal.

Valiquette was 3-0 lifetime against the Leafs, and had already beaten Toronto 1-0 in a shootout on October 17th.

Instead of going for another shutout against the Leafs, the wheels soon fell off for Valiquette and the Rangers.

New York didn't score on the power play, and Mitchell skated into the Rangers zone and beat Valiquette to break the goose-egg with 7:24 left.

It was Mitchell's first NHL goal, and it seemed to spark the Leafs, who amazingly reeled off five straight goals--all in a span of 5:21--to pull out a 5-2 triumph.

Incredibly, it was the fourth time in the last six in which Toronto had fallen behind 2-0, only to rally to get at least a point.

The Leafs lost in a shootout to Anaheim in the controversial "switch-to-Curtis-Joseph-for-the-shootout" game, and have now beaten Boston, New Jersey, and the Rangers despite the slow starts.

Had this been last season, no way the Leafs would have gotten points in those contests. In fact, they would have gone ahead 2-0 in every game and then found ways to blow them.

The Leafs won't have time to celebrate this latest victory, as they'll be in Carolina for a Sunday night tilt against the Hurricanes, who are coming off a 3-1 loss to Edmonton, a game in which Ethan Moreau scored twice with 1:28 left to clinch it for the Oilers.


**Not only does KP Wee write for Bleacher Report, he’s also a published author. Check out his fiction novel, “Showing Their Scales,” on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.**

Why not Andy Moog?

The Hockey News recently listed former Boston Bruins netminder Andy Moog's 1992-93 mask as being the scarriest in hockey history.

That's great, but why is Moog not applauded for his on-ice accomplishments?

Sure, the Hockey Hall of Fame is tough on goaltenders, as only a couple from Moog's era (Grant Fuhr and Patrick Roy) have been inducted.

Moog, however, won 372 games in his 18-year NHL career, and finished with a decent 3.13 GAA. (Remember he started his career in the 1980s, an era when high-scoring games were the norm.) When he retired in 1998, Moog had the highest winning percentage, all-time in history, among NHL goalies with at least 10 seasons.

Moog was the first of his era to reach the 300-win plateau. Sure, he began his career before Roy and Fuhr, and thus was able to get to the milestone quicker. But other top goalies who started playing before Moog did, such as Mike Liut and Greg Millen, never got to the 300 club.

Nope, Moog never helped a team win the Stanley Cup as a number one goalie, but he did have his playoff moments, both for the Edmonton Oilers and the Boston Bruins.

Moog was the 21-year-old rookie who had played only seven NHL games in 1981 when injuries to the other Oilers goaltenders made him the starter in the playoffs.

Edmonton, which had never won a playoff series up to that point, received spectacular goaltending from Moog as the No. 14-seeded Oilers upset the No. 3-seeded (and heavily favoured) Montreal Canadiens in a three-game sweep of the preliminary round.

The Oilers fell to the defending champion New York Islanders in the round, but Moog's heroics were certainly memorable.

After an embarrassing first-round defeat to the L.A. Kings in 1982 with Fuhr in goal, Edmonton coach Glen Sather went back to Moog in the 1983 playoffs.

Moog started every game that spring and went 11-1, carrying the Oilers to the Cup Finals against the Islanders. A 2-0 loss (Moog allowed one goal and the Isles scored an empty-netter to clinch it) in Game One against New York ended Edmonton's run, and the Islanders never looked back.

A four-game sweep at the hands of the powerful Isles wasn't a perfect ending to the 1982-83 season, but Moog had helped Edmonton reach the Finals for the first time in franchise history.

The next season, Fuhr was the starter between the pipes in the playoffs but it was Moog who played the final two games (with Fuhr out with an injury) as the Oilers defeated the Islanders to clinch their first Cup.

Moog was 143-53-21 in seven seasons with the Oilers. However, Fuhr was always seen as superior than Moog. (Ironically, during the same time, Fuhr's regular season stats were similar to Moog's; Fuhr was 148-56-33 when he and Moog were teammates.)

It was on to Boston, where Moog's Bruins, who had beaten the Canadiens in the playoffs only once all-time and had lost 18 straight series to the Habs, suddenly reversed the trend.

Moog's Bruins knocked out Roy's Canadiens in the 1990, 1991, and 1992 playoffs, with Andy owning a 12-4 record against St. Patrick in those contests. (Like Dave Stewart dominating Roger Clemens in the baseball postseason.)

With Moog, the Bruins made it to the Finals in 1990, before they fell victim to the Oilers in five games.

Boston made it to the Wales Conference Finals in 1991 and 1992, but the Bruins fell short, losing to Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins both years.

Leading the Bruins to three straight Final Four appearances is no small feat, and Boston has not come close to sniffing any kind of playoff glory since.

After Moog's departure from Boston (at the end of the 1992-93 season), the Bruins have won only two playoff series. Two series in the last 13 years. And the Bruins have employed a plethora of goalies, such as Jon Casey, Jim Carey, Bill Ranford, Andrew Raycroft, Byron Dafoe, Craig Billington, and Blaine Lacher. None have been as solid as Moog, the true "Hab-Killer" come playoff time.

Nope. Moog isn't seen as one of the top three goalies all-time in Edmonton, as Fuhr, Ranford, and Curtis Joseph are all highly regarded as Oilers legends.

Nope. Boston has its own history of great netminders in Tiny Thompson, Frank "Mr. Zero" Brimsek, and Gerry Cheevers, who'd all won Stanley Cups for the Bruins. So Moog isn't ranked atop the B's all-time list of great, great goalies.

Ironically, Moog was traded away from Boston before he could claim his 300th career win, and was also denied the opportunity to play in the final game in Boston Garden. (Moog was traded two seasons before the Garden was replaced by the FleetCenter.) Patrick Roy was also shipped out of Montreal before he could win No. 300 and shortly before the last game was to be played at the Forum.

At least Moog managed to play in the historic final game at the Forum, when his Dallas Stars took on the Habs in 1996. And Moog also participated in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, going 4-0-0 in his games. (Team Canada finished fourth, as the team didn't fare as well in Sean Burke's starts.)

However, no jersey retirement in Edmonton. None in Boston. It would have been nice to see Moog inducted into the Hall of Fame with Ray Bourque and Cam Neely, as they were the "Big Three" in Boston in the early 1990s, the way both Michel Goulet and Peter Statsny were inducted together as Quebec Nordiques' legends.

Mike Richter (Rangers) and Mike Vernon (Calgary), who are not Hockey Hall of Famers (yet), have all had their jerseys retired by their former teams. Ron Hextall is in the Philadelphia Flyers' Hall of Fame, despite not winning a Cup (losing the Finals in 1987 and 1997).

When will Andy Moog get his due?

**Not only does KP Wee write for Bleacher Report, he’s also a published author. Check out his fiction novel, “Showing Their Scales,” on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.**

WS thoughts...

Just over a decade ago, baseball’s Fall Classic was meaningful.

From 1991 to 1997, ie. Before the Yankees started their dynasty by proving 1996 wasn’t a fluke and minus the strike season in 1994, every World Series was intriguing. There was Joe Carter’s Series-winner in 1993, along with Gene Larkin and Edgar Renteria driving home the championship runs in extra innings in Game Sevens (1991, 1997). In the other Classics, the winning teams won by a single run in the clinching Game Sixes with the opponents leaving the tying runners on base or having them represented at home plate.

You had heroes like the Mark Lemkes, Len Dykstras, Luis Sojos, Chad Ogeas, Jim Leyritzes, Ed Spragues, Pat Borderses of the world, who came up big when you didn’t expect them to. Lots of memorable games to be sure.

The NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, and Super Bowls—which at the time featured blowouts seemingly every single year by the NFC squads—had nothing on the World Series.

But what about baseball’s championship series now?

Too many off-days for the Colorado Rockies (2007) and Detroit Tigers (2006) made them rusty in what turned out to be lopsided Series losses to the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively. Thanks to baseball’s new scheduling system in 2007 when extra off-days were included in the LCS, Colorado had too much rest (and rust) following a four-game sweep against Arizona in the NL Championship Series, wiping out whatever momentum the Rockies gained on the way to winning the senior circuit.

Late start times. So many World Series games end now when many in the East have gone to bed, thanks to the late starts, pitching changes that naturally occur in most every game, and the general length of contests to begin with. In the ridiculous third game of this year’s Series, which ended close to 2:00 A.M. Eastern, the action started at 10:06 P.M. following a 91-minute rain delay. Crazy.

TV networks. Many fans out there are complaining about the postseason coverage by TBS. Never mind how badly the commentators are doing, but why is the postseason on cable to begin with? Oh okay. The World Series is on FOX, but even Joe Buck gets lots of trashing, especially with his comments earlier in the postseason that he preferred reality TV to baseball (interestingly, even he suggested baseball games are too long.)

And this year’s “Classic”?

Bad managing, for starters.

With the Tampa Bay Rays’ backs against the wall, manager Joe Maddon decided to rest his two starters, “Big Game” James Shields and Matt Garza, in the completion of the suspended fifth game.

Shields, who was well rested and had pitched 5.2 scoreless innings against Philadelphia already to give Tampa Bay its lone win in the Series, was instead saved for a Game Six which ended up not being necessary. (Shades of Cubs skipper Lou Piniella saving ace Carlos Zambrano after just 85 pitches in a tie game in the 1997 NLDS?)

Maddon turned to his bullpen, which hadn’t exactly done the job if you counted the fifth game of the ALCS and a couple of the earlier contests in Philadelphia, with the score 2-2 when play resumed in the Phillies’ half of the sixth inning.

The bullpen couldn’t get it done, and the Rays were done.

Then we look at the way the suspended fifth game was handled by the commissioner.

With the rain coming down and field conditions becoming worse, Bud Selig could have suspended or called the game several innings back, but waited until the Rays tied the score at 2-2 before declaring the contest suspended.

Surely Selig must have been waiting for Tampa Bay to draw even, another fiasco much like the All-Star tie debacle in 2002.

Selig supposedly had made the decision before the game that no World Series contests could be rain-shortened contests the way regular season games sometimes are.

Except both the Rays and Phillies clubhouses didn’t know about this supposed decision. There were several players on both sides who were quoted as saying they thought if Tampa Bay couldn’t score to tie it and the game became “official” after 4 ½ innings, the Phillies would have won.

The point is, why wasn’t the game stopped innings earlier? Players could have been injured on the wet field conditions, and if the Series had been extended to a sixth or seventh game, either or both lineups could have been weakened had there been any significant injuries.

So, it’s hard to understand why the game was allowed to continue on until Tampa Bay was able to tie it. You had the feeling the game was going to keep going despite the rain if the Rays were still behind.

(Thankfully the Phillies fans weren’t screwed this year because their team won. Can you imagine if Game Five was won by Tampa Bay, which then took that momentum into the final two contests at Tropicana Field and ousted the Phils? All this when the Phillies were up 2-1 and the game was already official after five innings? This would have been worse than in 1993, when the Phils led the Blue Jays 12-7 in the rain and the game wasn’t called. Toronto came back and won 15-14, taking a commanding 3-1 Series lead.)

And while we’re at it, why was Game Five even started? Okay, enough about this year.

Given recent revelations, even past World Series can no longer—in my view anyway—be looked upon in the same way.

You have admissions from stadium employees that “home field advantage” actually meant something in World Series play. And this from a Fall Classic that ESPN had once ranked as the best ever played, and yes, it was played at the Metrodome.

Then you hear about players who slugged significant, Series-changing dingers in 1992 and 1996, who later admitted having used substances during their careers. In another "great" World Series, the first "November Series" because of September 11, the Game Seven winning hit was delivered by a playerwho had never before (and has never since) put up such big power numbers in propelling his team to the NL West title by narrowly edging out the San Francisco Giants.

And it appears dubious World Series contests go even way before that.

Any baseball fan knows all about or has at least heard of Shoeless Joe Jackson and his Black Sox from 1919. Even several years earlier, there were other “Suspicious Series” (as titled in Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Lineups, pages 42-43, 2003 edition) when the Red Sox took on the New York Giants in 1912 and even during Boston’s 1903 triumph over Pittsburgh. That would be the Red Sox’s first two ever World Series championships, if anyone is counting. Yikes.

The World Series… Yes, for me, it’s lost a lot of luster, and this year’s Rays-Phillies tilt didn’t do much to reverse any of that.

Well, baseball is over for another season. The World Series is done. Does it matter?

Rick? Trout? Cliff? House? Comments? Rainbow Trout?


**Not only does KP Wee write for Bleacher Report, he’s also a published author. Check out his fiction novel, “Showing Their Scales,” on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.**