What Can We Expect From The Leafs' Players This Year?

How exactly did this happen? Oh right, the ASG was in Montreal.

PDO is a beautiful thing. While not perfect, it gives us insight on who we can expect to have a bounce back season, or who we can expect to fall back to earth.

If you want to make a couple bucks by the end of the season, do this: find one of your stupider buddies that doesn't read this blog (hint: should be easy to find) and bet him that 1) Ryan Getzlaf will have a bounce back season and 2) Erik Karlsson will see a regression on his point totals. Both of these players had an outlier season in terms of On Ice SV% and On Ice SH% (what determines a players' PDO), likely affecting each players' point totals.

Anyways, this is a Leafs focused blog so follow me over the jump to see what we can expect from the good guys this year.

The NHL is Back, 113 Day Long Panic Attack: Over.

Claus Andersen/Getty Images

Congratulations everyone, the NHL lockout is over. I know a lot of you said you would never come back and that "enough is enough" (I flirted with the idea myself) but let's not kid ourselves, you're wearing your Toronto Maple Leafs hat, boxers and socks right now, just like me. Now that the handshakes are over and meaningless apologies have been handed out it's time to start doing what we all do best: bitching about the Toronto Maple Leafs.

March to the Playoffs

February was a tough month for the Maple Leafs, it saw: the Leafs fall into 12th place in the Eastern conference, Torontonians break swearing records and our media-friendly coach Ron Wilson get fired. Ron Wilson was on his way to becoming one of very few coaches to lead a team into four straight years of early golfing and ridicule when Brian Burke decided that the Toronto Maple Leafs would be Wilson free for March and onward.

Well, Thank God That's Over

This is what he does for us too!

The Maple Leafs have completed one of the most dreadful months in recent memory, of course it came on leap year making our agony just that much longer. February started out so promising, our perceived #1 net-minder James Reimer had two straight shutouts to begin the month, followed by a high scoring game against Edmonton. What a way to start February, with three straight wins under our belts nothing could go wrong.

The newest $15 million dollar man: John-Micheal Liles

Bernard Weil, Toronto Star

Today, John-Micheal Liles was handed a 4 year $15.5 million dollar contract (per TSN.ca). This comes just after the news that he is primed to return from a concussion he received December 22nd vs. Buffalo; a scary thought. While Liles has filled in admirably for long time Leaf Tomas Kaberle since his arrival, this comes as somewhat of a surprise.

Many Leaf fans thought that Liles would receive a pat on the butt as a sign of thanks at the end of the season while heading out the door, thus making room for a couple of young defenders that seem primed to take over for him, Jake Gardiner and Cody Franson. It would seem that this move to re-sign the 31 year old makes one of Gardiner and Franson expendable, and for a Leafs defense that has struggled much of the season, this is worrying.

Do the Leafs really, really need a "number one" centre?

Photo cred: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Apparently the Toronto Maple Leafs are in desperate need of a "humongous big number one" centre - per every single person that gets paid a good amount of money to talk about them. I'm going to go ahead a disagree with that. While it is true that the Leafs need to get stronger up front, as they get pushed around like a bunch of Timbits when they play a strong team, i.e the Boston Bruins. Getting bigger and tougher shouldn't be the most pressing need in the organization, it should be preventing goals against.