As I mentioned when we started sharing the results from the poll, I am greatly appreciative of the level of participation we received from our readers on this. I’m hoping that we can have a bit more back and forth like this in the future and begin establishing a bit of a sense of community around this site. Look for us to revisit mailbags as part of that throughout the season, as well as us firing you some questions on social media as well. Perhaps a midseason pulse poll will make some sense or given that its all about the playoffs, we’ll check back on how confident everyone is feeling post trade deadline too.
As for now, this last bit focuses largely on the players as well as some predictions for the upcoming year. As you may remember from yesterday’s post, reliable goaltending is the biggest need for the Leafs, so let’s start by talking about that position.

There are a few ways of slicing this data depending on how you want to feel. 60% said goaltending is the same or better. 53% said it was the same or worse. Or 48% thinks there was no change or it is impossible to know if there was a change at this point. I like to believe goaltending remains as voodoo as ever, but while I can appreciate that there are Jack Campbell fans out there, I don’t think there are too many Leafs fans that will be missing Petr Mrazek. There is also the fact that Jack Campbell and Petr Mrazek at $8.8M would have been a tough pill to swallow and some change was required. Now, Jack Campbell and Ilya Samsonov at $6.8M might have been a fine compromise to many and that also points …

Read More

Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation