Okay, attack might be a stretch when describing the Toronto Maple Leafs' offense.
Phil Kessel finished last season with 30 goals for the Leafs. A solid number to be sure, but the fact that the next closest scorer on the team was Nikolai Kulemin with 16 goals meant that there wasn't much of it going on.
And when you don't score in the NHL, you usually don't win.
The only other current Leaf player who was on the team last season who hit double digits in goals was Mikhail Grabovski, who had 10.
The rest of the not-so-offensively-gifted players had a whole lot of nothing, which could be a slight indication to why the Leafs find themselves with just 71 goals through their first 31 games this season, better than only two teams in the NHL (New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders).
To help with their weak scoring punch, the Leafs made some offseason moves and added Clarke MacArthur, who had 16 goals last season (and currently leads the team in points with 24), and Kris Versteeg, who potted 20 with the Stanley Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks.
But that's pretty much it.
They wer ...
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Article written by Jon Neely
Toronto Maple Leafs: Balanced Offensive Attack Proving to Be More Effective
December 18th, 2010 by Jon Neely Leave a reply »
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