Leafs 2009 Training Camp Roster + My Two Cents
Published September 12, 2009 @ 09:44 in Toronto Maple Leafs
I hate official team sites. Can you imagine a more biased source of news? I suppose a site like mapleleafs.com would be fine if you were just looking for a schedule or to purchase tickets, but if you're looking for team news and insight, the official site is the last place I go.
On the web, I've witnessed the birth of the Barilkosphere the past few years. There's a solid collection of Maple Leaf blogs run by smart, passionate Leaf fans that simply didn't exist when I started blogging. I didn't coin the term Barilkosphere, but I'm still very, very proud of my Google ranking for Bill Barilko (currently #2 after Wikipedia) and I won't attend a Leafs game (or non-summer Hip concert) without my custom made #5 Bill Barilko jersey, but I digress...
One site in the Barilkosphere is Pension Plan Puppets. They posted the Toronto Maple Leafs 2009 training camp roster, so I'm going to borrow their HTML, throw in a little of my CSS and put it here for y'all.
| Forwards | Defence | Goaltenders | ||
| Jason Allison | Dale Mitchell | Francois Beauchemin | Juraj Mikus | Andrew Engelage |
| Alex Berry | John Mitchell | Jesse Blacker | Phil Oreskovic | Beau Erickson |
| Jason Blake | Ben Ondrus | Josh Engel | Todd Perry | Jonas Gustavsson |
| Darryl Boyce | Colton Orr | Garnet Exelby | Andry Rogers | Joey MacDonald |
| Tyler Bozak | Alexei Ponikarovsky | Jeff Finger | Joe Ryan | James Reimer |
| Tim Brent | Wayne Primeau | Jonas Frogren | Luke Schenn | Vesa Toskala |
| Joel Champagne | Kyle Rogers | Carl Gunnarson | Barron Smith | |
| Jamie Devane | Jay Rosehill | Tomas Kaberle | Juha Uotila | |
| Andre Deveaux | Greg Scott | Mike Komisarek | Mike Van Ryn | |
| Alex Foster | Robert Slaney | Brandon Manning | Ian White | |
| Stefano Giliati | Viktor Stalberg | |||
| Mikhail Grabovski | Matt Stajan | |||
| Richard Greenop | Mikhail Stefanovich | |||
| Niklas Hagman | Lee Stempniak | |||
| Ryan Hamilton | Jiri Tlusty | |||
| Christian Hanson | Rickard Wallin | |||
| Nazem Kadri | John Kurtz | |||
| Nikolai Kulemin | Jamal Mayers | |||
19 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes, and 42 seconds from now, that list has to be down to 23 players. The goalies will be Tosky and The Monster, but nothing else is certain. Here's my two cents on the above list.
- Is Jason Allison's invitation some kind of joke? If he was that slow last time, there's simply no chance of him making this team. I realize we're lacking scoring up front, but Jason Allison is not the answer.
- The Marlies look to have a solid defense this season, because there's a serious glut of NHL-calibre defensemen coming to camp. If we agree the top six is Kaberle, Schenn, Komisarek, Finger, Beauchemin and White, we're forgetting about Van Ryn, Exelby, Oreskovic and Frogren. Will White start up front?
- Who's going to score on this team? Please don't tell me that's Blake's job... I'll bet Tlusty and Kadri are playing October 1.
- What time is it? Can I add Phil Kessel yet?
- Two final words: Viktor Stalberg. That is all.
Go Leafs go!
Fredericton Steve
September 12, 2009 / 10:27
I don't think Finger makes this team over Exelby or Van Ryn.
Jason Allison doesn't have a chance to make this team, I'd say its more like a courtesy invite by burke.
also, I doubt Kadri makes the team this year. I'd rather see him rip up the OHL and put on a little more muscle before arriving in the NHL. He has looked good with the puck in the rookie games so far but that is what it is - rookie games.