Burke's Toronto Maple Leafs Are a Bonifide Top 10 Team!

Alright then, once you are finished with your fit of uncontrollable laughter, get up off of the floor before you hurt yourself and read on.

After 42 years of dismal performances and dashed hopes, even the boldest of optimists and most dedicated devotees will shy away from predicting anything positive about the Toronto Maple Leafs chances of advanced achievement.

Scribe after scribe will continue to predict the failure of the Leafs and if the past is any indicator, odds-makers would have to put the good money on the success of those predictions. 

That is until this year, and yes, yes, yes, I realize that that has been heard so many times that it's nearly impossible as a Leaf fan to put any stock in the statement without the risk of throwing themselves under the bus.

But let us take a few unbiased minutes to contemplate the facts.

The Leafs offense last year was 10th in scoring. By virtue of that fact one must allow that the Leafs had a top 10 offense. That is not a feeble prediction, it is a verifiable truth.

Far too many castigators are roasting Burke for his failure to improve the offense. Ahh, but this is where being conditioned to be pessimistic about the Leafs chances for success cloud the facts. The Leafs have indeed improved their offense. 

If you think I am referring to the additions of Rickard Wallin, Colton Orr, Wayne Primeau and a hodge podge of future talent up front, you would be wrong. I'm referring to the additions of Mike Komisarik, Francois Beauchemin, and Garnet Exelby to the defense.

You see, whoever first said that the "best offense is a good defense" was entirely accurate. Burke buys into that theory whole-heartedly, so much so, that there are rumours that in his will he has requested that that statement be his epitaph—but I digress.

The much alluded to toughness that Burke has brought to the Leafs will allow the offense to move more freely and allow the skills of Jason Blake, Mikhail Grabovsky and a slew of others to be displayed without the constant fear of being pasted to the boards.

Having said that, the offense has improved in an indirect fashion, like it or not.

Lets not forget that Burke has only just begun. He still has cap space to make a move and his tradition has always been to make a headline-grabbing splash with his new team.

It's only a matter of time and, it will be sooner rather than later.

As for the defense itself, the addition of the aforementioned rearguards makes the Leafs the envy of many general managers around the league. There have been many, many educated insiders who feel that the Leafs now have a top-five defense.

In fact, the Leafs have too many quality defensemen, which gives Burke another ace in the hole when it comes to sculpting his offense vis-a-vis trade bait.

If there is one flaw in this concept, it's the unanswered questions regarding goal tending.

Will the tandem of Vesa Toskala and Jonas Gustavsson be a top 10 net-minding duo?

Time will tell, but even in that department Burke has made improvements, other than landing Gustavsson. Not to beleaguer the point, but the defense in front of net has improved dramatically and the Leafs now have one of the best goal-tending coaches in the world.

So, facts being facts, the Leafs have an offense that, at worst, is 10th in the league.

The Leafs also have a defense that is better than top 10, more like top five.

The goal-tending scenario has improved so much so, that even if that position is the weakest of the three, it is nowhere near poor enough to bring the Leafs down below the top 10 status.

I can therefore predict with complete confidence, that barring a string of devastating injuries, a pandemic of 1918 proportions or a communist takeover of North America...that the Toronto Maple Leafs will make the playoffs this year and there is no skating around the issue.