Impediments to Playoff Hopes Continue to Mount

While they went through October with virtually no injury problems, the Maple Leafs are beginning to feel the injury bug. The loss of Mike Komisarek has shown what kind of a defense we have without him. While I’m not sure how many of us knew quite what to make of Komisarek’s start, by removing him from the lineup we see it a little clearer - less aggression, less cohesion and more mistakes.

Just as things were starting to look up for the Maple Leafs - solid goaltending and stringing together a pair of wins - Jonas Gustavsson has started to look more like, well, a rookie goaltender finding his way. That’s not to take anything away from Gustavsson’s early season performances, but the honeymoon is over. After having three goals blasted by him in the first period of last nights game against the Calgary Flames, he sat with his helmet on for the remainder of the period.

Now it’s time to get real: he’s going to take time to fully round out into a 65-70 game a season kind of number one goalie.

To make things worse, the somewhat X-factor of the Eastern Conference, the New York Islanders, have started to play some good hockey. They now hold eight place and 10 points more than our 11-point Leafs, though they have played a conference-most 20 games.

It also doesn’t help that one of the teams fighting for a playoff spot with us are the Boston Bruins.

We’ve played a quarter of the season and have three wins. Using the line “it’s still early” is starting to get old.

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