From the Oracle: The Pogge Trade

Sorry, it's taking time for my magic dinner plate to load the "promising Leafs traded" file

So soon for another installment of From the Oracle? Well, we find ourselves back in that frenzied position. You know that position—a trade has just gone down and the chemistry and makeup of the team has been altered and you are in that scared and worried place: “did we just screw ourselves over? Did we win that trade? Will I miss player x? My google search of player y has yielded no fruit. I’m lost and frightened and I seek council.” Well luckily we here at TOV recognize that you are feeling lost and adrift and that is why we take the arduous trek to visit our oracle whenever a trade happens. We vow to bring you her secret and mystical utterances.

Surely by now if you are faithful followers of our fantastic franchise you will know that the Leafs have all but traded Pogge to Anaheim for a conditional draft pick based on his performance for the Ducks (*edit: it's official now.) Recently we here at TOV profiled our beleaguered puckstopper, where we weighed the pros and cons of keeping our lil cocky Poggers. Ultimately we were in favor on keeping him and letting him test his mettle by competing for a backup position on the Baby Leafs (and we also mused about a dream scenario of loaning him out to a team, much like they do it in Europe and much like how I loan out all my crappy young players when I’m playing FIFA 09. Off to Nottingham Forrest for you! Haha!) We were actually looking forward to seeing if he had what it takes mentally to work his way up the ladder.

However, St Brian had other ideas. He actually went through with his “this kid deserves a chance to play and I’m going to give him a chance to play by not playing for us” threat. Methinks Burke actually means what he says when he says things to the media. Weird. We are so used to JFJ lawyer speak: “I am not currently at liberty to discuss that particular issue regarding that particular player or players like him, but all I can say to our fans with their insatiable hunger for any scrap of knowledge from the front office is that I am looking at all options, non-options, potential options, options both known to me and unknown to me and any options that fall into the category of unknown unknown options, in order to bring this club to the level of competitiveness that we would like to see our team be at” zzzzzzzzzzz….*murf* hmm? Oh yeah. Oracle.

So Burkie is doing what he says. How odd. When we posed to the Oracle our question of why the Leafs would trade away an asset such as a gold medal, Russian shutting-out, Rask-beater goalie of the future, she gave us an answer and ultimately a point of view that we had not considered before. After several poured libations, and countless incantations in an ancient tongue lost to us now she eventually emerged from her secret cave. Her oracle is as follows “a murmurer overboard murmurs alone. A murmurer below deck scuttles the fleet,” which is another way of saying “I think I’ve had too many poured libations.”

Incomprehensible as it is, our experts, lawyers and general holy men took to work unpacking her pronouncement. What we have gathered is as follows:

There are many good reasons to have kept Pogge: he’s young. He’s a goalie. Goalies develop slower than humans. He has that unfortunate moniker of potential—wanted by 19 year olds, dreaded by 25 year olds. He’s got a gold medal and a pretty wicked backstory of humble beginnings. He would push Reimer, or Reimer would push him, or something would be pushed in the Marlies. Whatever. It’s the Marlies. Everyone is trying to get out. Plus it is never really a bad idea to have options at all positions, especially goal. We liked these options. These options made sense to us. We slept at night knowing that Pogge knew what job he had in front of him and it was time for him to go out an win our hearts and minds. Done and done, lets go make fun of Eklund (e5).

Well, St Brian said “kid won’t get time to play here. I will trade him for a pick kthxbai.” What do we say to this?

Our take

Three little words that have been the culture of the Maple Leafs for almost a decade now: country club entitlement. Fresh faced youngsters fresh off the boat, or fresh off the combine skate into town, get a few goals or some nice toe saves and the Toronto Media gets all love-shy and bashful and competes for who can write the best “I Wanna drink Justin Pogge’s Bath Water” article. All of a sudden the kid with Maple Leafs' shining in his eyes soon stands on his balcony, o’erlooking the city like a second Nebuchadnezzar and pronounces “is this not the Great Crease Legacy I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” (For all you biblically literate readers out there, perhaps we should have a, “Is Justin Pogge going to turn into a Donkey” blogpost. We digress.) Before you know it the player is penciled in on the starting team and they start asking the equipment manager if the lawn chair they brought to practice is going to damage the blue ice.

So Burke is sending a message. You may be the goalie of the future. You may be a great talent that is waiting to develop. We may have been really happy to have you in our line-up in three years once you begin to breakthrough whatever it is you need to breakthrough to become the premier puckstopper that you have always envisioned yourself to be. However you are living and acting as if you have done it, and once you live like you have done something, you will never do it. Basically, Pogge started being Pete from Madmen.

So St. Brian’s message is that we are willing to trade a probable goalie-of-the-future in order to stamp out the culture of entitlement. As long as Pogge thought he was a great goalie without having been a great goalie, he would never be a great goalie, and there was a real strong potential that he would drag down the rest of the team with him. Scuttle the fleet.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a GM who valued heart before talent, so we’re not really used to this. We’re concerned that a promising player has been shipped out of town, but in reality it may have saved the whole show, both for us and for Pogge. Kid just got slapped around. Kid just got schooled. He just learned the lesson that any sign of any taint or blemish on your work habits can infect the entire team and will not be accounted for on a team that is pushing to win. Pogge now has two options: 1. Go to Anaheim, work your tail off, live the Rocky III storyline (“Yo Adrienne, we did it!”) and become a goalie. Or 2. Go to Anaheim, never shake your delusions of grandeur and become Trevor Kidd, who was only ever good at growing horrible facial hair.

So we stamp out the culture club and all the bad karma chameleons, get a low pick and give a kid a chance at becoming an honest player and shaking the messiah-in-waiting label.

But here is our final point for you, our faithful brethren. If Pogge does go to Anaheim and Rocky III’s it there, once he is a free agent looking for a place to take his new found A-game, to whom do you think he will have a feeling of loyalty? Pogge probably hates Burke now, or is indifferent, or lost in a syrupy mire of self-pity and delusions of grandeur, but he would be truly shortsighted if down the line he doesn’t realize that this is the opportunity he needed to achieve the highest honor he, or any NHLer could have: being known as an honest and classy player. If anything, Burke is a good General to his men (and we love him for it!) Men marshaled under a good General usually welcome opportunities to be marshaled under them again.

Keep the faith.

Prorogue Pogge's potential departure from our perennial puck paradise...post haste!

Thousand-yard stare? Or reading the plane ticket




Greetings faithful remnant.

Or, if you've lived in Toronto over the last few days, happy monsoon season! There were some here at TOV who thought that the storms of the past few days were the final wrathful apocalyptic acts of the hockey gods, upset by our munchkin commish's reign of error. Indeed, we dusted off our "the end is near" signs and started handing out maps to our secret mountain compound. There was debate whether we should dry store or freeze store our emergency seed supply, but by then the rain stopped, the great oracle read the animal innards and told us that it was not wrathful gods but just a crappy summer and we went back down to DEFCON 4, "Code: Mogilny."

But that DEFCON level may be a-rising with the recent news, illustrated here in The Star (yucky, I know.) They claim that the Leafs are shopping Pogge! Now, normally we here would read the Star's article with our coffee and say to our Toronto bourgeois selves, "so this is what news is like north of Eglington...and not even one rhetorical trope or literary reference in sight!" and then we would laugh it off and go to MLHS or PPP for our real Leaf's news of the day.


Normally. Except for one lil scary bit in the middle of that article. You know, that part where Brian Burke says, "we are actively shopping Pogge so he can go play somewhere else." (or: "I have promised Justin I will try to find him a place where he will get a better shot," for those who are link adverse.) And we know Signor Malcontentay means it too, because that's the same line he gave during the whole putting-Kronwall-on-waivers-so-he'd-go-play-somewhere-else deal. Now, is Burke being a nice guy, or is this a better way of saying "goodbye, unwanted part" without actually saying that they stink.

But therein lies the debate: does Justin Pogge suck? Seven months ago he was still the crown prince of the organization, sent from above to shepherd his people to the land of milk and honey and grapes the size of habs forwards (adorable lil forwards!) Remember all those Howard Berger articles where he called us stupid to be rooting for a player playing for a team that we cheer for and love? But now he's earned the Brian Burke "I owe it to the player" kiss of death?

So faithful remnant, we have 2 options:


Doooooo it!

Pull that trigger Burke. Dude was 1-4-1, 0.844% and 4.36. I get better stats in ball hockey [aside: need a ball hockey goalie in the Toronto area, hit me up]. I remember the poor leaf homer who picked Pogge for his fantasy team in my league. He had some dark days, let me tell you. [Aside: Fantasy rule #1. Keep emotion/fandom out of it].

Secondly, maybe there are some GM's out there who remember the 2006 World Junior shut out of ze russians. Let's play that up and see if we can get some kind of return on him, or package him with Kaberle for some sort of obscene monster deal.

Also, speaking of the 2006 championship: Steve Downie. TML. Getterdone.

Thirdly, we've got Jonas "I can peer into your soul"Gustavsson, and James "No google images for me" Reimer. That spells future tandem, children! We're set. We don't need no Tukka Rask (aaaaaaaaaAAAH.....Freak Out!) and we don't need no Justin Pogge (or thought contraul). So lets turn that G into an F (Downie plzkthxbai).


Seriously?....Seriously? No, seriously?

Take a gander at who won the Vezina this year. Was it Luongo in Vancouver? Or was it Nabokov in San Jose? Nope. Tim freak'n Thomas. One night, the Bruins GM needed a goalie, went to a local Boston pub, found some guy and put him in net. I swear, the Vezina trophy this year is the same plotline as The Rookie. Except we suspect that its more like the plotline to Angels in the Outfield, because divine intervention by Christopher Lloyd is the only way Thomas made half those saves this year. And don't look at us to explain it, we just deal in Leaf's divinity.

But back to the argument: Tim Thomas won the Vezina. He spent years playing around Europe, honing his craft, learning about loss and hardwork and dedication and really really wanting something (maybe something some young hotshot who say's he's "naturally ripped" in a cribs episode could learn). Can we give goalies out on loan? Send him to Sweden or something. Get some culture and puckstopability and come back all zen and Gustavsson-like--the apparently ultimate butterfly "Monster" goalie. (hmm...butterfly monster eh?)

Bottom line is that goalies take time to develop, and it ain't no science. It's not really an art either. Some sort of weird voodoo magic? Finnish food? Who knows. But the argument is, is that Pogge's got the tools, he just doesn't have the structure. So maybe he should stay in the place that just hired the best goalie coach in the world who loves athletic giant goalies like Pogge. Is there a real harm to have him duke it out in the Marlies with Reimer. Let's see if this kid really wants this. Earlier in the season Burke said himself that Pogge hasn't earned his way on to the team, but has he really earned his way off to another? Sure he may be a bit cocky and channeling the ghost of Ray Emery a bit, and sure I'm personally way more excited about cool and calm goalies like Gusty and Reimer, and sure Ron Wilson threw him under the bus but is it really time to take this mutt to the rural vet? Can't we gauge (pardon the pun) to see if he is a hungry hungry hippo, or just a regular hippo?

So let's hear it, faithful remnant of leafs nation: Pogge out? Or Justin.

Keep the faith

p.s. vote in the poll!

p.p.s. and thanks so much for reading. I appreciate all the support and comments. It's nice to be liked by fans of the team you love.