By Jim Kelley - NHL Analyst
TORONTO -- In the wake of a humiliating 7-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night, Toronto Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn was asked if his team had pretty much quit on trying to make a comeback in the game.
It was a subtle question, gently worded. The underlying implication being that his team had quit on him.
Given a similarly uninspired loss earlier in the week to Buffalo, the message couldn't have been missed.
"I certainly don't believe that is true, and I don't think that happened," Quinn said, his tone more like a patient doctor at bedside than a fiery hockey coach known for some spirited sessions with the media.
If you know Quinn or have seen him in action, you know that he doesn't suffer questions like that lightly. Normally Quinn fires back, hard.
But these are not normal times for Quinn, the Maple Leafs as a team and as an organization. So it was not shocking that his demeanor was reserved, almost grandfatherly. He was patient with the questioner, measured in his response. One came away from the press conference thinking this isn't a man under fire, it's a man trying to gently refocus his team.
Given Quinn's experience, his reputation for success and his long tenure in the game, he deserves that opportunity. The question in and around Toronto, however, has to do with whether or not he will get that chance.
Times here have changed and the changes have not all been in Quinn's favor.
For starters, he's no longer the general manger. In a messy, but not altogether ugly restructuring of power, the upper management at Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment separated Quinn from the dual responsibilities of coach and general manager and brought in their own man: John Ferguson Jr.
Ferguson is an up-through-the-ranks GM and would appear to have a bright future, but he doesn't have a tenth of the experience that Quinn -- a former coach, general manager and team president in Vancouver and a longtime coach in both Los Angeles and Philadelphia -- has. But Ferguson does have the ear of his new bosses. Those close to the organization claim that Quinn does not.
In addition, some fans and media members seem convinced that Quinn is the reason the team is struggling. They claim that he's been at the helm for too long now and that the players, many of whom have also been here for a very long time, are tuning him out. They cite the loss to Philadelphia as a prime example. The Leafs claimed to be emotionally ready to meet the opponent that unceremoniously ousted them from the first round of the playoffs in a lopsided seventh-game loss last spring. Instead, they came out flat, uninspired and, uncompetitive Saturday night.
Critics also argue that the team never truly responded to Quinn and that players only feared him because as GM he controlled their fate. Stripped of that power, they argue, the players have stopped listening and as a result, have stopped responding.
As in all such arguments, there is an element of truth in everything that's said. But to say Quinn is the sole reason the Leafs are at 5-4-2-1 wouldn't just be unfair. It would be wrong.
The Leafs are, at this point in the season at least, not a very good team. They have the usual share of problems -- lack of depth and injuries to key players -- but they also are an older team that is a good two to three years past its prime. You can argue that Quinn the general manager is responsible for a big part of that, and you would be correct, but that won't change the situation that confronts the Leafs today. Today's Leafs are so thin on the back end that they can't compete playing the style of play they play.
The Leafs are also a veteran team and, like a lot of veteran teams, they don't take the early portion of the regular season all that seriously.
Those are substance issues. There is also the matter of style.
The Leafs like to attack. They are not a team that strives to play a defensive-minded system shift in and shift out. They aren't a team married to the trap, and they certainly don't play a kind of game that has players going from point to point on this ice solely to prevent an opponent from leaving its own end.
That can lead to problems, especially in their own end. Against quick teams, like the Sabres on Thursday night in Buffalo, the Leafs look slow, especially in their own zone where the core of the defense is a mish-mash of players who are too old, too young or injured.
Against power teams, the Flyers being a quality example, those same players also appear too weak to keep their opponents from driving to the net. They also don't seem to have the expertise to move the puck quickly against a team with a pressure-the-puck mindset.
"Technically, we don't have very much confidence in the back end," Quinn said, stressing a point that has become all too obvious even before the Flyers debacle. "Unfortunately, it's showing up in our [overall] game. We don't seem to want the puck, and we have to find some way to trust each other."
That might sound like a self-serving remark, the kind that comes from a coach who's looking to put some distance between himself and his players' reasons for too many losses by far too many goals. But it also happens to be true.
And that's the odd thing about all of this. Quinn has been around the game long enough to know what's wrong with a team, and he's certainly been around long enough to know how to go about fixing its ills.
The difference now is that he doesn't have the power in the front office to make the personnel changes that could help things along, and there's reason to suspect that he can't exactly lean on Ferguson to bend to his will.
It's also pretty much a given that if it all continues to go south, it likely won't be Ferguson (the new hire) or any of the players (who rarely feel anyone's wrath in this town) who'll take the blame.
That's why the whispers are already out that if the losing continues, it will be Quinn, despite the fact that he has a reported two years left on his contract, who will ultimately pay the price.
It's not right, fair or even logical, but it has happened time and time again in hockey, and unless Quinn finds a way to reinvent the talent in the players he's already got, it will happen to him.
It would be wrong to say that the time to fire Pat Quinn is now, but it's fair to say the clock has started ticking -- and few in or outside of the Air Canada Centre are in any hurry to stop it or even slow it down.
Oh yeah Belak and Domi....prove talented fighters.......allen and may proven pussy's with no talent?