FanPost

Why Your Team Sucks: Atlantic Division

SUCKS - Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

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Some sites and writers have actual analysis of the 2015-16 NHL season. This one does not. This is literally just reminding you of the reasons your favourite team is awful and why you should feel awful. Today in our four-part series: the Atlantic Division.

BOSTON BRUINS:

2014-15 Season in Review:

*looks at standings*

*makes primal noises*

*wipes sweat off forehead*

*lights cigarette*

Yup; this'll do.

Your Head Coach:

Claude Julien. The man has two known emotional states: (1) Droopy Dog impersonator; and, (2) being in an elevator while someone let out a really rancid fart. That's it. That's Claude. He's also the first and only coach in the NHL to have dropped a sex tape, as seen below:

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This of course presupposes that Julien will last much longer after being given the most lukewarm endorsement from Don Sweeney. Well, that and the fact Sweeney went pretty much nuclear on the team and it sucks now. I give it ten games before Claude is unceremoniously dropped into a lava pit and the Bruins give us the second coming of Randy Carlyle.

Your Starting Goalie:

Vezina Winner and anger management expert Tuukka Rask!

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New Things That Suck:

The Bruins' 2015 offseason plan: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dougie Hamilton wanted a sensible contract extension, so naturally they trade him to Calgary for magic beans because the Bruins front office and media are deathly allergic to skilled young players. They then re-sign Adam McQuaid. THANK GOD WE HAVE ALL THIS CAP SPACE FOR NOW WE CAN RE-SIGN ADAM MCQUAID. Trading Hamilton to extend McQuaid is like selling your car so you can buy an 8-track player from 1983 to put in the car you just sold.

While unloading Lucic's contract was a good idea, you then remember that (a) they have next to nothing in their top six now; and, (b) HAHAHAHAHA HOLY CRAP THEY ACTUALLY RETAINED HALF HIS SALARY WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING. At least Krejci will have Zac Rinaldo to feed the puck to. Rinaldo is an offensive talent, in that his very existence is offensive. Their top six is basically two centres praying that the regression gods take their sweet time smiting Future Buyout Matt Beleskey.

These offseason developments are surprising. I, for one, am shocked that a team with John Ferguson, Jr. in its front office is making such bad deals.

Old Things That Still Suck:

Well, as far as the team goes, they gutted the areas in which they were already the weakest. Their 2015-16 top six consists of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Brad Marchand eating his own feces, and a three-man Appalachian jug band. Their D is basically Old Man Chara carrying around pylons while trying not to hurt himself.

And who deserves it more than Boston sports fans? After years of shoving the loveable loser facade down our throat, they quickly turned into the New York Yankee fans of everything. Let's be honest: there's nothing loveable about fans that taunt opposing fans with gay slurs, shout racial epithets at black players who do good things against their teams, and support the continued existence of Brad Marchand.

Not to mention the toxic Boston media. All of the shameless homerism of Jack Edwards mixed with the libellous character assassination of Steve Simmons! That's a winning combo right there. If the Bruins ever trade a bunch of young players en masse (which might happen if they rebuild, because God forbid they keep a prospect longer than three years), the hot takes coming from Boston newspapers will make the Red Wedding look like a formal dinner with the Queen.

BUFFALO SABRES:

2014-15 Season in Review:

Dead last, though it was surprisingly close given the absolute effort the Sabres dedicated to manipulating the system. They deliberately signed bad free agents to give the impression of trying to be legitimate, though no one really bought it. They not only traded every asset they could for late round picks and scrap metal, they traded both of their goaltenders for worse ones because they were playing too well. Even the 1984 Pittsburgh Penguins were kinda like "Uhhhhh bruh; I think you have a problem."

What makes the Sabres' tank so impressive wasn't the actual execution, but the pure shamelessness of the whole thing. Buffalo made no real attempt to hide what they were doing. Hell, Tim Murray even lobbied the NHL to delay draft lottery changes one year just so the Sabres could tank to a top two pick. No shame, no discreteness. The 2014-15 Sabres were the hockey equivalent of that naked old man in every gym locker room that walks around with his junk flopping around for all to see.

Anyway, in the end, the Sabres didn't get the No. 1 pick, because there is a great and just God who will always ensure Buffalo gets nothing nice.

Your Head Coach:

Not Mike Babcock, because there is a great and just God who will always ensure Buffalo gets nothing nice.

This, of course, didn't stop Sabres fans and media from throwing a wild temper tantrum about how Babcock "lied" to them and how immoral the whole thing was. Yes; the same fanbase that cheered as their team spent all year playing the system to get a good draft pick suddenly grow a conscience when a very good coach does the same thing to them. Perhaps MLSE can buy them the world's tiniest violin.

Instead, they get noted consolation prize Dan Bylsma. Bylsma is basically the T-Pain of hockey, in that he peaked in 2009 and has pretty much just been resting on that ever since.

In the Sabres, Bylsma gets the Discount Value Brand™ version of the team he had in Pittsburgh. He's basically going from double-quilted Charmin to that stuff in hotels that gives your butt a thousand papercuts. A rookie Jack Eichel and Evander Kane instead of Crosby/Malkin. Zach Bogosian instead of Kris Letang. The indigent guy they pluck off the street to play goalie instead of Marc-Andre Fleu- well, actually, that one's a wash.

Your Starting Goalie:

Well, see, the issue is that there really isn't one. In their hasty effort to strip off everything of value from their roster as if it were a stolen car, they got rid of anything resembling a starting goalie. Then left their goaltending derelicted on the side of the road with cinderblocks for wheels. The Sabres goaltending is all appetizers and no main courses. It's as if they told everyone to bring potato salad to their BBQ and totally forgot to have someone responsible for the burgers, and now everyone is just sadly sitting at the picnic bench choking down seven different kinds of store-bought potato salad.

Yes, I'm aware they acquired Robin Lehner. Robin Lehner has never played even a half season of games, and he put up a .905 SV% last year. Lehner is the Matt Cassel of goaltenders.

New Things That Suck:

Evander Kane is here! Kane is looking for a fresh start after dealing with the heat of being a black athlete to critical white fans and media. That's just great because Buffalo is totally a not at all really white place and their sports media has totally never had issues with confident black athletes before!

They also decided to nuke their salary cap until 2022 on Ryan O'Reilly, who has more DUIs than 30-goal seasons. Any time you have the chance to pay Steven Stamkos money to a guy who's cracked 20 goals and 60 points once in his career, you just gotta do it. I mean, I get that Terry Pegula is so rich that he lights his cigars with $50 bills and then makes his interns dance for the charred remains, but this is a cap league.

Old Things That Still Suck:

No matter what coach you hire, no matter who you take in the draft, no matter what prized possessions you acquire, at the end of the day, you are still the Buffalo Sabres.

Let that sink in for a minute.

More substantially, while bolstering their top 6, the Sabres just kinda forgot to do anything about their defence. They have Bogosian and…..well, pretty much the same people that brought you two consecutive 50-point seasons. This is the same basic defence that allowed well over 3 goals against per game with surprisingly not awful goaltending. They have to outscore their defensive problems, and there are way too many of those to count. I guess it's unsurprising that a city still stuck in the 1980s is adopting a playing style from that era.

DETROIT RED WINGS:

2014-15 Season In Review:

Made the postseason again! That's 25 years now, guys! Aren't we so #blessed?!

Seriously, though, this is literally all Red Wings fans have now. They are not contenders anymore; not even close. They show up, make the playoffs in a disgustingly bad conference, then get smacked on the nose in the with a newspaper in the first round by a team that's actually, y'know, good. They're still hitting the links in May with all the other mediocre-to-bad teams. Could you imagine this team still in the Western Conference? It'd be so bad, you'd need NATO to make a humanitarian intervention. Even with the playoff streak, they've basically been downgraded from "perennial Cup favourite" to "Eastern Conference St. Louis Blues." You're not fooling anyone, Detroit.

Your Head Coach:

Jeff Blashill. After ten years, apparently Mike Babcock decided he'd much rather coach the most hopeless team in the league than stay with Detroit. Damn. Like, how hopeless do you guys have to be when a coach says "Yeah, sorry guys; you're so boring, I'd rather coach this unmitigated garbage fire than stay here"? That's like your wife leaving you for Chuck C. Johnson. And don't give me this "it was all about money" thing, as if Mike Ilitch wasn't capable of giving Babcock G5s and a lifetime supply of Little Caesar's lukewarm cardboard-flavoured pizza and raining a dump truck of money down on him. I mean, sure, they'd probably have to import the dump truck from elsewhere given the meagre public works budget, but it'd still be a lot of money all the same.

Anyway, Blashill is the latest in a long line of "AHL Prodigy" head coaches that always succeed and work out for everyone. Just ask Dallas Eakins.

Your Starting Goalie:

Petr Mrazek I think? After being unceremoniously booted from the starting job in the postseason, it looks like Jimmy Howard may be a $5.2 million backup. Jimmy Howard would be the highest-paid person to lose his job in 2015 if Donald Trump didn't exist.

New Things That Suck:

Handed out $6M a season to Mike Green, which is a very smart deal if Detroit is trying to defend their 2008 championship.

Also, $3M to a 35-year old Brad Richards. Chicago paid him less to put him in a more valuable role down the depth chart. The Red Wings depth at centre consists of Pavel Datsyuk and Stephen Weiss' buyout. I've seen more people in the middle at Republican primaries.

Old Things That Still Suck:

The Detroit Red Wings made the playoffs last year, will probably do so this year, and maybe even next year. But, you just know what's coming. Like the icy sceptre of death standing over the wheelchair-bound octogenarian chain smoker with an oxygen tube that slightly resembles Tuco Salamanca, it is only a matter of time. Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are not getting any younger. Nicklas Kronwall will either age terribly or be brought before The Hague for one of those hits Red Wings fans repeatedly insist is perfectly clean. They're already a hollow shell of their glory days, so the demise will be swift and painful.

Detroit jokes are passe, but don't forget this is the team that has no issue putting its city over a barrel for a new arena mere weeks after Detroit declared bankruptcy. But hey, at least they get running water despite their delinquent accounts unlike, well, pretty much all of the poor people in Detroit. Poking fun at a poor and crumbling city just seems mean when you can poke fun at the behemoth institution that mainly screws over the poor and coasts on mediocrity. Cheering for this team is like rooting for Marie Antoinette. LET THEM EAT CHEESY BREAD!

FLORIDA PANTHERS:

2014-15 Season in Review:

Missed the playoffs. Nobody showed up. People got angry at nobody showing up. People got angry at people getting angry for nobody showing up. People got angry at people getting angry at people getting angry for no one showing up. Basically, the entire season was a bunch of people getting really angry about nothing and jack squat actually getting accomplished. The Florida Panthers are the Hockey Twitter of teams.

Your Head Coach:

Gerard Gallant. Is that even a real name? It really just sounds like the name of a coach someone casts in a fictional movie about a hockey team.

[movie trailer voice]

Nobody believed in the Updogs. The plucky kids from the wrong side of the tracks had lost 69 straight games, and things were not nice. And along came a man who knew how to sports. Gerard Gallant would change the lives of these boys forever.

[cuts to scene in locker room]

GALLANT: what's your name, son?

PLAYER: Johnny Calhoun!

GALLANT: and what position are you?

PLAYER: CENTRE!

GALLANT: AND IS A HOT DOG A SANDWICH, SON?

PLAYER: NO SIR!

GALLANT: YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT ISN'T! AND WHO DO YOU PLAY FOR?

PLAYER: UPDOG, SIR!

GALLANT: AND WHAT'S UPDOG?

PLAYER: NOT MUCH; GONNA GO WIN THIS GAME! YOU?

[Team applauds wildly]

Your Starting Goalie:

Roberto Luongo. Except when he's injured or has to poop. Then, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS AND DRESS GOALIE COACH.

New Things That Suck:

Traded for Reilly Smith, because overloading on Mimico really worked wonders for Dave Nonis. Also acquired the contract of Marc Savard, presumably because having a major head injury makes you a prime candidate to become Governor of Florida.

Old Things That Still Suck:

What's to say about the Panthers that hasn't been said already? Dave Bolland is their second-highest paid player, and yet they need contracts like that just to make the cap floor. He sucks but will remain a Panther because they'd probably require state funding just to buy him out. The team has one playoff appearance in the last fourteen years. Their best prospects are Lawson Crouse and a guy who probably yells at women on the street to wear more clothing for Jesus or something. The draft likely outdrew five of their games combined. They play in a market where the most popular sport is cocaine.

As far as the division goes, the Panthers are that shy, nerdy kid at the lunch table that isn't actually friends with anyone else sitting there but no one's gonna tell him to go away because it'd just be way too awkward so everyone just kinda agrees to ignore him. That really is South Florida's NHL legacy. That and vermin.

MONTREAL CANADIENS:

2014-15 Season in Review:

Carey Price finished first in the Atlantic Division and made it to the second round of the playoffs. The rest of the team were dragged along kicking and screaming, asking "are we there yet?" until Price threatened to turn the car around and go back to the preseason. The hilarious thing is that wasn't a joke because that team is that useless without Price and they're Habs, so they're by nature whiny jackals that would probably do such a thing.

Anyway, Price was the equivalent of lipstick on a pig. He spent most of the season making a fairly mediocre team look like a contender. They then won in the first round against an Ottawa team that really had no business being in the postseason and still managed to almost blow that. Their season finally ended when forced to play a legitimate hockey team.

Also there was much Habs outrage over an allegedly injured Mark Stone returning to the same game rather quickly; or, as it's known in Max Pacioretty's vernacular, "Tuesday."

Your Head Coach:

Michel Therrien. He used to bodyguard for Roch Voisine, which explains where he picked up unbelievable expertise in warbling, whiny Franglais. To him, the biggest problem this team faces isn't poor coaching systems, which really just boils down to "hold on to your butts and let Carey Price do Carey Price Stuff." It is not having such an irrational attachment to useless fourth liner Dale Weise that make you wonder if he was born in Chicoutimi. Montreal never loses because his team is not good enough, or his coaching is not good enough. It's because the other team has no "risspeck" or the OT-winning goal was offside or the other coach spied on him at practice and bloo bloo bloo. Therrien is that golfer who duffs his ball into the forest, blames you for breathing too loudly in his backswing, and then takes about six mulligans before putting it on the fairway. The only things he is good at deploying are excuses and arms to cry into.

New Things That Suck:

Nothing, really. They traded Brandon Prust, who I hate, for Zack Kassian, who I will learn to hate. Both players have career highs of 29 points, so it's really just swapping a Coke machine for a Pepsi machine. That said, have you SEEN Kassian? He looks like a guy who picks up hitchhikers in a windowless van and has several dismembered body parts in his basement freezer.

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I feel like I've seen this guy somewh- oh, right:

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Old Things That Still Suck:

Unfortunately, pursuant to Montreal Canadiens law, I am obliged not to start this portion without a ceremony honouring some French guy who was in the general vicinity of this team in the 60s or 70s. I think he served poutine at the Forum or something?

*makes you wait around half an hour while old white French guys parade around with potential fire hazards*

.......

WOW WHAT A CEREMONY SUCH A STORIED FRANCHISE.

Okay, you're still there? Good. We can move on, then.

The Habs fanbase has not seen a Cup win in 22 years, yet still have the same spoiled rotten entitlement as the days of yore. They're basically the rotten trust fund babies of the league. I bet Lena Dunham is a Habs fan.

If you've ever listened to Habs fan during a game, they make an anti-vaccine 9/11 truther seem comparatively sane and level-headed. To hear it from them, the league and the officials have an active conspiracy to bring down the League's oldest and third-wealthiest team. To date, they lead every other fanbase in 9-1-1 calls. Their 180 on whether the hit on Price in 2014 was dirty (it suddenly was after he was injured for the postseason) was eerily reminiscent of a guy who gets rear-ended then magically sustains whiplash when he sees a Benz in his rear view window.

Also, the Hockey Sweater is mindless propaganda, and that boy is a stupid baby whiner who deserved to be kicked out of his hockey game for being a stupid baby.

OTTAWA SENATORS:

2014-15 Season in Review:

HAMBURGERS N STUFF.

Basically, the Sens blew a decent draft position to get gutted in the first round of the playoffs by a real team, all because their third-string goalie had 24 really good games. It was the feel good story of the century! It was almost like a movie! They came from behind! They made it! Curtis Lazar probably gained 20 pounds and clogged an artery! Wasn't it just the best?

Well, this is the sequel to that movie. And sequels really suck. It'll probably be like Major League II, where Andrew Hammond becomes this corporate shill with his new endorsement and sucks and everyone hates him. I'd also bet on Kyle Turris being in a blockbuster summer action movie and played by a different character than last season. Maybe there's a crazy Japanese guy. It'll be awful.

Your Head Coach:

Dave Cameron. If we're going strictly on looks, it appears the Sens replaced a Wilford Brimley body double with a Republican presidential candidate. Seriously; look at this face:

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He looks angry, but angry in the most boring way possible.

Your Starting Goalie:

WHO WILL IT BE? Will it be the perpetually inconsistent 34-year old Craig Anderson, or Andrew Hammond, the 27-year old flash in the pan who was unsustainably good over 24 games just to shit the bed in the postseason? Keep in mind as you decide this that the Sens spent years trying to develop a promising goaltending prospect, only to trade him to Buffalo because their AHL goaltender got a McDonald's endorsement deal or whatever. Seriously, look at Hammond's AHL numbers; they're terrible. And the Sens kept THIS guy. The only thing that'll be supersized this year is the team's goals against.

New Things That Suck:

Nothing. Nothing at all. This team has done nothing. They've traded Lehner and David Legwand, and let Erik Condra walk. That's it. Everyone on this team will have been on the team in 2014-15. The team that barely squeaked into the playoffs on 24 games with unsustainably good goaltending and the Bruins imploding just decided "Yeah, we're pretty cool with this setup." That's like walking into an abandoned asylum and thinking, "Y'know, this would make a lovely home! Just look at the decor! The scratch marks on these walls are perfect for the baby's room!" Like, even way crappier teams at least tried to get better. Maybe they huffed glue and gave out a hilariously bad contract or four, but at least they tried, y'know? That probably sucks less than doing what Ottawa did.

Old Things That Still Suck:

Look at that roster. It's Erik Karlsson, a few decent forwards, and yeah…..not really a whole lot else. If this were a football team, it'd be a stud QB with an okay backfield and wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men for wide receivers. Chris Neil and Chris Phillips are still here, because apparently paying old, crappy people to be old and crappy because they played for your team when they were young and good is more important than acquiring currently young and good players. Colin Greening is still here because….yeah, you stumped me on this one.

Still irrationally obsessed with Toronto, despite the fact the Leafs have sucked for a long time. I don't get it; the feeling definitely is not reciprocal. I'm sorry that you need to project your hate because you are somehow the most irrelevant Canadian team in a league that put a team in Winnipeg. I don't hate the Sens. I used to, but I don't anymore. I'm really bored just writing all of this, to be honest.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING:

2014-15 Season in Review:

Your Eastern Conference Champions, against all odds! If you were to ask a Lightning fan, their playoff run would be an underdog story so unprecedented, the people who wrote Rudy, Hoosiers, and Air Bud would think it were unrealistic. How amazing they managed to overcome the tremendous odds of most of the hockey world thinking they would win the Eastern Conference in October to…..win the Eastern Conference in June.

THEY SAID WE COULDN'T BEAT DETROIT! Except pretty much everyone said that. I'm pretty sure nobody gave Detroit a chance in that series. THEY SAID WE WOULDN'T BEAT MONTREAL! Except most people did say that, because smart people recognized that team was Carey Price and not a whole lot else. THEY SAID WE WOULDN'T BEAT NEW YORK IN GAME 7! Uhhh, didn't we seriously all pick you to win the conference eight months ago?! BOLTS AGAINST THE WORLD, OR AT LEAST THE SMALL SEGMENT OF THE WORLD THAT DIDN'T HEAVILY FAVOUR US.

Then there was that whole "ticket policy being restrictive to opposing fans in the postseason" thing. Why do the Lightning hate freedom so much? Even Kim-Jong Un probably thought "Yeah, this is a bit overboard" before going back to starving and oppressing his people brutally while bumping some Katy Perry jams. But, you just don't get it, you guys! Rumour has it if you say "Lightning ticketing policy" in the bathroom mirror in the dark three times, two dozen fans in Bolts jerseys will appear in your bathroom and yell "WELL ACTUALLY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE POLICY…" in loud, harmonious unison until you gouge your eyes out with a fork.

Your Head Coach:

Jon Cooper, who used to be a lawyer. Did you know he used to be a lawyer? No? WELL, HERE'S A THOUSAND THINKPIECES ON HIS STRANGE JOURNEY TO THE NHL FROM BEING A GLORIFIED VERSION OF SEASON 1 OF BETTER CALL SAUL. Seriously. I bet Cooper also rented out an "office" in the boiler room of a Vietnamese nail salon.

Your Starting Goalie:

Ben Bishop, best known for eating way too much Mexican food from a suspect-looking van prior to Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final. His coach played him most of the series while his joints were being held together with duct tape and old bubblegum, which definitely never does long-term damage to a player!

Bishop is slowly carving out a reputation in this league as "Mike Smith, but way taller." While his SV% and GAA are strong, it's the unheralded goalie categories in which he shines. Categories such as "diving," "tripping up opposing players in his crease," and "whining about goaltender interference that clearly didn't happen." Bishop is what his ex-lawyer coach would call a vexatious litigant.

New Things That Suck:

NOTHING. And that's the worst part. The Stanley Cup runner-up has done nothing worth commenting about. I mean, technically, they signed Erik Condra, but who outside of his immediate family cares at all about Erik Condra? They're doing nothing because the Eastern Conference is basically the Lightning and fifteen hobos smacking each other with their bindles over a dead pigeon, and they know it. And so they have to add "boring" to their resume of really annoying adjectives used to describe the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Old Things That Still Suck:

I have never encountered a more sensitive group of people in my life than Lightning fans. They restrict what opposing fans can do in their building, and then give you a 30-minute lecture about it. They go overboard on Stamkos rumours/jokes as if they're trying to convince themselves more than anyone else. They still talk about Martin St. Louis as if he had sex with their spouse and then ran over their dog with his car on the way out. Wow, a professional athlete demand a trade? That literally has never happened before in the history of sportsing! Do these people have abandonment issues? Are they still reeling from Brad Richards "going to the store to buy a pack of smokes" and never coming back until he won a Stanley Cup against them?

The worst part of all is that none of this makes sense. You people live in a land of perpetual sunshine, beaches, and low taxes! Your team is good! Your people are beautiful! You're at least a 3-hour drive from the parts of Florida where drunk people slam a car door on their genitals! If you were like Winnipeg, I'd get it. But seriously; what could you possibly have such an inferiority complex about?!

Oh, there's also that whole "still paying Ryan Callahan almost six million for four more years" thing. Have you seen Ryan Callahan skate on a breakaway? It's like watching a marble statue trying to push a boulder uphill.

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS:

2014-15 Season in Review:

*fart noise that carries on for two minutes and crescendoes at certain points*

Oh, I guess you were expecting me to write real stuff, weren't you?

The Leafs started the year by bringing back Randy Carlyle, which seemed about as smart as a fine china shop promoting a "Bring Your Bull to Work" day. They made it not even two games before people threw jerseys on the ice. They did their annual insane winning streak, because Toronto sports is not complete without a team giving you some form of hope they can take away from you while stabbing you in the gut and stealing your wallet. They lost 7 of 9 before Carlyle was fired. Then they got unlucky. Then they got deliberately bad. People then overlooked that Carlyle losing streak while calling his firing the worst thing since South African apartheid, which also happens to be Jonathan Bernier's favourite PGA Tour major.

But, they managed to get the 4th overall pick, which isn't bad for a team that actually went into the season, y'know, trying to be good and stuff.

Your Head Coach:

MIKE DAD BAB CLOCK.

Nothing against the best coach in hockey, but have you SEEN this roster? He's a hockey coach, not a miracle worker. If he's the real life hockey equivalent of Friday Night Lights' Coach Taylor, then this is his Season 4. Anyone can look good with Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Nyquist in your top six. Now do that with PA Parenteau on your first line, or the likes of Peter Holland and Richard Panik playing on a third line that's really a second line in name only. There will be yelling, and it will be hilarious because yelling in a hoser accent is always hilarious.

Your Starting Goalie:

Hockey's answer to Derek Zoolander himself, Jonathan Bernier. Bernier returns for his third season of being pretty good in front of a not very good team, but not after igniting some offseason controversy in Toronto. Because, y'know, even something as insignificant as a BABY'S ONESIE passes for a controversy in the Toronto media. Trade talks aside, the real controversy is that onesie promoting another second of that godawful Hockey Wives programming.

New Things That Suck: You know what I'm going to talk about, don't you? I assume you do. Well, I'm stumped. I still don't get it. This is still the only reasonable scenario in which I can see this trade was made:

JULY 1, 2015- MLSE OFFICES:

"Morning, Kyle."

"Morning, Brendan."

"Big day today?"

"Sure is; we managed to get Hunwick and Parenteau for fairly cheap deals."

"Great! Well, that's all we really planned on for today. How about we call it a day and drop a bunch of acid?"

"Sounds great, boss!"

Of course, only in Toronto could people actually believe trading the most skilled player you've had in twenty years for the most underwhelming package you could fathom AND retained salary AND giving up a draft pick is "addition by subtraction." This is why we can't have nice things.

That Kasperi Kapanen kid sure looks good, though; can't wait until the media and fanbase turn on him five years from now for being lazy/European/thinking a hot dog is a sandwich/all of the above.

Also, y'know, the actual team is going to suck, since that's what happens when the fourth-worst team in the league decides it will roll four third lines for the year.

Old Things That Still Suck:

Like many people, I hate this team. I hate the fans. The difference is unlike many of these people, I am a fan of this team. Deep down, I want the Leafs to not suck and be successful, but I also know we suck and probably don't deserve anything good to happen to us ever.

Despite being the most corporate city in Canada, this fanbase inexplicably seems to embrace "blue collar, lunch pail" ethos to the most absurd degree. "HEART N GRIT N WORKIN HARD," says the Bay St. suit who sounds like a grizzled countryside mechanic despite the fact he won't even change his own tires for fear of getting his Dockers dirty on the way to the cottage. Leaf fans are like everyone at the Republican primary: nostalgic for some bygone era in their history that never actually existed. Wendel Clark is pretty much the Ronald Reagan of hockey players in terms of overratedness. Fight me. I don't care.

There'd be no problem with it if the real underlying issue was a complete aversion to any skill whatsoever. The Leafs must be the only team to be a bad team with good pieces, then subsequently conclude that the good pieces are the entire problem. It's not that Tyler Bozak is a third-line centre miscast as a first line centre. It's not that their defence beyond their top three is two midgets in a trench coat and a broken Stephane Robidas that's no longer covered by warranty. It's that Phil Kessel is fat and lazy, and therefore he is influencing everyone else through the power of voodoo hot dog mind control to be fat and lazy as well! I'm not sure how burly men who wolf down hot wings and beer during every game got down to criticizing the appearance and conditioning of a professional athlete, but here we are.

These fans have the self-awareness of an NFL PR campaign.

*********

Coming in 1-2 weeks: the Metropolitan Division.

This FanPost was posted by a fan, and it probably sucks and is dumb.

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