The Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL 11 GM Mode)

[Leafs81]

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Burke steps down, Leafs bring in new face

The Toronto Star
September 18, 2010

Just a few weeks after a quite successful off-season, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke has stepped down from his role. Brian needed time off after the passing of his son, to help re-coop and support his family.

In the wake of such a sorrowful departure, the Leafs wished Burke the best of luck in his future endeavors, and hope he and his family can pull through a very rough time.

At the same token, the Leafs also know that there is a void position now at the GM spot. They held interviews and applications piled up, as aspiring GMs tried to land a gig in TO. One man struck the Leafs as exceptional, he is calm and collective, has a good background in business, and has a great track record in the hockey world.

This man is Greg Bomben, graduate of Ryerson for Business, and Manager of the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL. The Quebec Remparts have boasted some great junior players over the years, and largely because of Bomben's keen eye and work ethic. NHL alumni of Quebec include Simon Gagne, Alex Radulov, Mike Ribeiro, Antoine Vermette, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic.

The hopes are that Bomben can translate his wealthy knowledge of business, and his background in managing hockey, to help propel the Leafs out of the cellar and back into a prestigious club. Bomben had this to say:

''Hello all, thanks for coming out today. Let me just say, what an honor it is to be the new GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. There must have been a million other guys that were salivating at the thought of managing a storied franchise such as the Leafs, but I am the one lucky guy who has the chance to live out the dream.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a special team to me, growing up in Mississauga, the Leafs were always my favorite team, never in a million years did I think I would one day be calling the shots for the club. I can't even put it into words. But I guess we should talk about our mission.

The mission is quite simple, of course, and that is to bring home the hardware, the prized jewel of professional hockey, the Stanley Cup. This is quite a lofty goal and not something that will happen over night. But I feel that we have a quality coaching crew, and a quality line-up, that with a bit of tweaking and maybe a few oil changes, we can run like a machine.

There are alot of different philosophies out there on to how to build a team, and while my way may not be the easiest, I believe it yields the best results. We are going to build a balanced team, with good goaltending, defense, and offense. We are going to need size and grit, as well as speed and agility. I find that if you restrict yourself to one playstyle, whether it be big-man dump and chase game, or the little-man nifty passing plays, you limit your team's success. You become one-dimensional and other teams can predict your every move.

By building a balanced, well-rounded team, we will be able to check, pass, shoot, hit, block shots, kill penalties, make highlight reel plays, and so forth. We will be a complete package and leave other teams guessing. The championship caliber teams are those that have limited weaknesses, not limited strengths, we want to be of that caliber, so we need to balance ourselves.

The Draft is something I feel strongly about, I think it is an integral part of building any team, and I hope to use it to my advantage to construct a championship squad. With two first round picks coming up, courtesy of Mr. Burke, I feel that we are in exceptional position in the coming draft, and to reboot our team.

This is not going to be an easy task, you may see some faces flying out of the door, but for the most part, I like who we have here, and with a few more core pieces, we will be on our way to winning a boat load of games.

It all starts tommorrow in our first pre season game, we need to evaluate what we have, and go from there. Thanks for your time, now I must be off to work!''

Bomben is a blue-collared, hard-working manager who appears to have a good outlook for the future. And perhaps the Maple Leafs are in better hands with Bomben than ever before. But the question still remains, will the Leafs ever win another Stanley Cup?

[Leafs81]

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Preseason in the books, Bomben names team

The Toronto Star
September 30,2010

The long awaited preseason is over and done with. Bomben says he is happy with his team who finished at 1-2-1. He has made his final cuts and named the starting, and temporary of course, line-ups.

There were certainly some surprising players that made the team, and some surprising omits as well. Regardless, this is the final depth chart for the 2010/2011 season.

Toronto Maple Leafs Depth Chart - 2010-11
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
LW	J. Lupul	C. MacArthur	F. Sjostrom	M. Brown
C	T. Bozak	M. Grabovski	T. Brent	J. Colborne
RW	P. Kessel	N. Kulemin	C. Armstrong	C. Orr
D #1	D. Phaneuf	M. Komisarek	C. Gunnarsson
D #2	K. Aulie	L. Schenn	B. Lebda
G	J. Gustavsson	J. Reimer

Bomben had this to say about the roster:

"I believe this is a solid group of players here. We had a good look at all of our players in our entire system throughout the preseason, and felt this was the best make-up we could put out on the ice. I suppose the line-up is what was basically expected, but one player that impressed me a ton was Joe Colborne. Joe came over in a trade with Boston and had a wonderful preseason, appearing in 3 games, putting up 1G 2A 3P, with a +2 and 11 hits. He is a big guy and plays his role. His offensive touch combined with his size makes it a mismatch for defenders. We have him penciled in on the fourth line, to create some ruckus down there with Orr and Brown on his wings. I like what we have going forward."

While the line up looks decent, there were some exclusions that are a bit odd, such as Kadri, who looked primed to take the number three center role, but was beat out by Brent, and Colborne's size landed him the fourth line role. Kadri will be playing on the top line in the AHL, perhaps it is better for him anyway, to have experience as being the head honcho, so he's ready for the NHL if and when the Leafs need him.

Also, Jean-Sebastien Giguere has been nowhere to be found. He played the first preseason game in which the Leafs got throttled 6-0 by the Buffalo Sabres. Giguere's play was not remotely to what his contract suggests, and it looks like he will start the season in the AHL, backing up Jussi Rynnas.

Toronto opens the season at home against the rival Montreal Canadiens.

[Leafs81]

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Bomben strikes his first deal

The Toronto Star
October 2, 2010

While Greg Bomben has just been settling in as the new GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he has already sent a player packing. The Leafs had a decent preseason, and the lineup looked solid going forward, but there was one glaring omission.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere was uprooted from the starts job by Jonas Gustavsson. Which seemed fine, Jonas played well in the AHL, and had a good preseason. So it appeared Giggy would be playing relief pitcher to speak, but that wasn't the case either, as Reimer earns the number 2 spot, and Bomben says Reimer will be challenging the number one role, and the goalie's will split starts.

So with Giggy out of the picture, it looked like he was bound for the Marlies. His preseason was not impressive, appearing in 2 games, with a GAA of 3.90, and a Save % of only 86%. All signs pointed toward a slow season with the Marlies for Giguere, before most likely retirement after the season.

But this is not the case any longer, as Bomben has worked a deal to send the veteran puck stopper south, to Phoenix.

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G J. Giguere 84 OVR C POT @$6.000M for 1 year
2011 4th Round Pick (TOR)

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2011 5th Round Pick (PHX)
2011 1st Round Pick (PHX)

Bomben's comments:

"Excellent deal for us in Toronto. From a business standpoint, we drop six million in cap, not a bad dump if you ask me. But it is also a great deal from a hockey point of view. Giguere has been, and still is a great NHL goalie, we just felt that we needed to turn the page over in Toronto, and start building our young goaltenders into great goalies like Giguere. So with that said, and with Giggy slotted to play in the AHL, we felt that we could move him and that there was a good market for him. We ended up moving him and a fourth round pick to Phoenix for a fifth round pick and a first round pick.

So essentially the breakdown for us is we move down one round in the draft from fourth to fifth, but that's ok, the class is deep this year, and atleast we are keeping the same quantity of picks. And then it's Giguere for a first round pick. That's a beautiful return for an AHL goalie if you ask me. I am not putting Giggy down whatsoever, he is a great goalie and person, and I thank him for what he has done in Toronto, but we needed to get something back for him before it was too late. We now set ourselves up with three, yes three, first round picks, and we can now let our young goaltenders prosper. I like this trade for us and it definitely makes the future brighter."

So with the big contract off his back, and another first rounder under his belt, one has to wonder what there is, if there is anything, left to do from here on until the end of the season. Most of the players are young and on good contracts, so there most likely won't be anymore purges, but hey, who knows right.

[Leafs81]

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Maple Leafs October Update

Overall Record: 4-5-1

Monthly Record: 4-5-1

Who's hot?

Joffrey Lupul has been having a hell of a month, playing alongside Kessel and Bozak on the top line, Lupul has 2 goals in the first 10 games, but what's more impressive is his 10 assists, giving him 12 points in 10 games, as well he has 0 PIMS. Lupul's work ethic was a question and one of the things that got him uprooted from Anaheim, he took too many lazy penalties and ended up hurting his team. But so far on the Leafs, he is leading the team in points and is yet to take a penalty, he's showing no sign of past injuries bugging him, and the Leafs look for more of the same from the burly winger.

Dion Phaneuf has been all over the ice so far, putting up 3 goals, and 7 assists for 10 points in 10 games. But what is also is his 37 hits, good for 3rd in the entire NHL. Dion has worn the C with pride and continues to wreak havoc on opposing forwards. If the Leafs are going to win games, they need Dion to lead them and stabilize the back core.

Who's not?

Brett Lebda has been just plain bad for Toronto thus far. He has registered 0 points thus far, which, he is a stay at home D-man, but some assists would be nice. Heck, Brett only has one shot thus far. Lebda is also last on the team in hits with only 5. And to add insult to injury, Lebda boasts the team's worst +/- rating at -4. Things aren't looking good for Brett Lebda.

So what's new?

GM Bomben and Coach Wilson agreed to have Reimer and Gustavsson split starts through the first month, and that they did. Each goalie played 5 games and it appears as though a clear cut starter has emerged.

Jonas Gustavsson
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GP: 5
GAA: 3.55
Record: 2-3-0
SV%: 89.7%

James Reimer
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GP: 5
GAA: 2.40
Record: 2-2-1
SV%: 92.2%

James Reimer has been clearly the better goalie and showed more poise and consistency. Jonas has shown a lot of frustration and been really shaky at times. Although James may not be the greatest goalie, he's a real steady eddy and the Leafs are going with him, for now anyway.

[thedudedominick]

Decent start. I like the Giguere trade. Picking up a 1st round pick should help in the building process.

[Leafs81]

Yeah we've been alright, Lupul has been awesome with Kessel and Reimer is definitely better than Jonas right now, hope to see an improvement when Reimer takes the reigns.

And picking up that third first round pick was really important.