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

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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.

Maple Leafs 'Special' teams since the NHL lockout: Penalty Kill

Bond villain, Dallas Eakins.

The Maple Leafs have had a troubled past with the Penalty Kill since the lockout. They have been out of the bottom five once since hockey started up again, when they were ranked 24th in 05/06. Since then their average ranking is 29th.

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.

Burke Sees into the Future of the NHL: Role of Enforcer Diminishing, But is it for Better or Worse?

Marlies?!?

Brian Burke had the painful task this week of putting team favorite Colton Orr on waivers, which he cleared and then assigning him to the Leafs farm team, the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL).  This obviously didn't sit well with him, as he went on a tirade in a press conference about his concerns with the direction of the NHL, and the role of the endangered enforcer.  It is widely known that Burke is a supporter of the enforcer role and that NHL players should first police themselves before the league gets involved with a disciplinary role.  So it’s not a surprise when Burke makes the comments he did about “rats” taking over the NHL landscape, therefore making it easy to dismiss his comments because, well, that’s just Burke being Burke.  But Burke makes a compelling argument that with the role of the enforcer being slowly extricated from hockey, players no longer have to worry about retribution for cheap shots.  This not only means more pests, but a general lack of respect for other players.  The “lack of respect” is what many NHL analysts attribute to the rash of high-sticking penalties and illegal hits.  Maybe this lack of respect is what Brendan Shanahan, current NHL disciplinarian, should be focusing on restoring.

Potential defensive call-ups

As we are all well aware, the Maple Leafs aren't exactly defensive juggernauts. Defensively the Leafs are 17th in GA at 5 v. 5, this is probably where most expected this team to be, in the middle of the pack. However, as we start looking at the Maple Leafs defense while shorthanded, the sad joy we have, at being in the middle of the pack, crumbles away. The Leafs are ranked 20th in times shorthanded, this wouldn't be the end of the world (read: playoffs) if they weren't ranked 30th in power-play goals allowed. So as you may be able to tell, the Leafs are in desperate need of a hockey player that can kill a penalty, or just play defense. Let`s take a look at what Marlies players could help out the roster.