Playoffs become a far cry for Toronto Maple Leafs-NHL feature
Playoffs – the second round of the National Hockey League (NHL) season - is increasingly becoming an afar cry for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the team probably has come to that realisation, lately.
Yet, it is reluctant to give up the hopes, most probably for the sake of younger players who have recently become a part of the side. A number of them have replaced the veterans such as forward, Joffrey Lupul, who have become unlikelihood for the team, due
to respective injuries, for rest of the regular season.
In reality, amid very thin playoffs chances, they are almost done with the 2011-2012 NHL season run.
Leafs, who managed well to progress through the initial part of the current season and had few successive wins to their credit, have struggled to maintain that run recently.
The loss of 12 out of last 14 games they played does not bode well with their playoffs hopes and chances.
The team is currently at the 12th position in the Eastern Conference. With about a dozen of more games to go in the closure of the regular season, the opportunity of making it to the second round remains very remote. This will be true to their
failure even if they are able to pull up a miracle to win all those remaining games.
The Toronto Maple Leafs had played 69 games until Sunday March 11, 2012, won 30 and lost 31, while losing another eight in the overtime.
So altogether they have 30 wins on the board and with 11 other teams ahead of them in the conference, they seemed to have failed them for the playoffs this year. And the development is not were pleasing for the team, especially for the players and coach.
Maple Leafs with 68 points will have to beat, the Washington Capitals with 76 points, Buffalo Bills (74), Winnipeg Jets (72) and Tampa Bay (69) points to claim the last/eighth spot for the playoff eligibles from the Conference. They are least likely to achieve
the daunting task.
At the end, the management can blame the loss in the playoffs run to unexpected injury of key players.
However, this might not serve them as the best excuse and overcome their problem of poor form on the ice, which they should ponder upon seriously in their efforts to pull themselves up together again.
Their dismal form in the second round of the league is especially more rueful.
Let’s say that the injuries to their stars, Joffrey Lupul, and Colby Armstrong, which have rather come later in the season, are the main factors to blame for their loss in the run to playoffs, their ongoing absence shall make their defeat in the rest of
the games more certain and definite. It remains to be seen how they perform in remaining games of the season.
No doubt, both players matter the most to their form and wins, yet they had quite a few talented players in the side, who could have helped them through to the second round.
The quality of that talent is certainly exposed in the absence of the two players, and the team apparently lacks the answer and solution to their absence.
A couple of more losses will make the playoff opportunity certainly unreachable for Leafs. They already seemed to have become defensive in their approach.
It is probably realisation finally becoming clearer on the managers that in absence of Lupul and Armstrong they have very few and difficult chances to maintain the run for the second round.
Even if both or any of the players is able to return to the squad, it can happen sometimes later this month, and by then the team will have only few games left to close their regular season.
So, all the equations and scenarios are apparently going against the Maple Leafs at the moment. They can only wish for an unforeseeable miracle such as development of a favourable situation on the league’s points table to give them an out of blue chance.
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