It's Time for the Maple Leafs to Give Justin Pogge a Shot

Another preventable loss last night for the Blue and White.

It pains me to say, but Vesa has been total crap in five of the last six games. The Leafs have let the most goals in as a team, and Vesa’s GAA and save percentage completely stink.

He’s in the bottom 10 goalies of the league—bottom three if you count only goalies with 10 or more starts. He is there among the bottom with names such as Raycroft, Lalime, and Joseph. (Oops!)

To those players' defense, they haven’t had even close to as many starts, and Raycroft even has a winning record.

Sure, Kipper and Turco are the other two goalies among the bottom three, but Dallas is total crap, and Kipper is still two games above .500. He might have gotten blown out in a couple of losses, but he has still stolen games for Calgary this year.

Also, if there was one thing that the Leafs could boast about at the beginning of the year, it was how strong their defense was. I still agree it is strong.

The Leafs have outshot their opponents in 15 of their 19 games played, yet they have only won six of those 15 games. That is freakin’ brutal.

Together, Joseph and Toskala make up the worst goaltending tandem in the league. Even if we had the Islanders' goalies, we would be faring better.

The first goal Vesa let in last night versus Boston, and more specifically Kessel, was downright ugly. You could even argue the third goal was stoppable.

The Leafs should have won easily 3-1, if not for the two or three amazing saves by Tim Thomas and the blown opportunities of the Leafs' weak power play.

I say it’s time to see our future—even if it’s for one game and just to rattle the cage, so to speak.

Right now, we can’t get much worse. Vesa has zero confidence, and Ron Wilson is obviously letting Toskala try to work through it. How long do you try that for? Five or six games seems good enough for me.

Let’s at least see what kind of asset we might have in the AHL. If we don’t have what we think we have, the future for the Maple Leafs will be darker than expected.