Toronto Maple Leafs: Kessel Finds His Game and Giggy To Retire?

Phil Kessel, who has, for a lot of Leafs fans simply not lived up to the billing, is on pace for another 30 plus goal season.

Kessel scored twice in the Leafs shoot out victory last night against the St Louis Blues and now has four goals in his last five games to go along with three assists.

Oddly, it seem that as Mikhail Grabovski goes, so goes Phil Kessel. Last night Grabovski, briefly held the club scoring lead after netting his 15th goal of the season, only to have Kessel score two to once again take over the lead in goal scoring for the Leafs.

While he has drawn the ire of many Leafs writers and fans alike, it is hard to argue with the numbers.

It should be said that if Burke had signed him as a UFA and not made the deal he did, a cap hit of 5.4 million for a potentially perennial 30 plus goal scorer would look like the steal of the century.

According to a recent article from the Toronto Sun.com, Jean Sebastien Giguere may be ponder retirement because of the seemingly endless parade to the Leafs infirmary that he has endured over the last couple of years.

While the headline reads "Giguere ponders future because of injuries," you would be hard pressed to actually get that message from the body of the story.

That being said, it may be a possibility. There is nothing concrete to back up this speculation but Giggy's numbers have steadily declined over the last two seasons with the Leafs after a fantastic start and it time for him to hang them up.

His declining numbers of course can be attributed at least in part to the team he is playing behind, but regardless he is no where close to the form he displayed in 2003, when he was a playoff MVP with the Ducks.

While one can't expect goalies to remain great until their last day on the ice, there has to come a time when an individual realizes that they just might not have it any more.

In staying with the subject of goaltenders, to say Toronto Maple Leafs current number one goal tender Jonas Gustavsson is experiencing a bit of a down turn may be a bit of an understatement.

Last year, in a year that he may simply have not been ready for the rigors and pressure of being an NHL goalie, he performed fairly well and wound up 16-15 with a .902 save percentage to go along with a 2.87 goals against average.

This year, although many would argue that he was mis handled by Wilson and that may have contributed to his decline, he is on pace to go 12-25 with a goals against of 3.13 and a save percentage of just .876.

Leafs fans should be desperately clinging to the notion of a sophomore slump.

While the Toronto Maple Leafs are still in the bottom third of the league in both goals for and against, there has been some improvement as of late with 21 goals in the past seven games.

The flip side of that coin, of course, is that they have allowed 22 goals over that same stretch.

The Monster has allowed 19 of them.