Off-season Leaf news

[Platinum Chris]

What? Does Fergy have a love obsession with players last names starting with B?

So Jason Blake, a one-time 40-goal scorer for $4mill a season. Some consider it cheap, but really, it just may be overpaid. Face the facts, before last season, he's never mustered more than 28G's a season. However, he is a gritty player, hasn't been plagued with injuries, and I think he may do quite well on the 1st or 2nd line. $4mil a year well spent? We'll have to wait and see whether he can come close to last years performance

Battaglia on the other hand, was a relatively cheap pickup for 2 more years. He had a decent season last year, but he's not a top goal scorer in the least. With the addition of Blake, it appears the Leafs really want some extra backup for Tucker. I mean, can his face take anymore cuts before its just one big scar with eyes?

Toskala signed an extension, so they locked him in for an additional 2 years. At this point, Toskala's contract extends beyond Raycrofts. I'm guessing the Leafs are banking their hopes on Justin Pogge or J.S. Augin to be ready to bounce up to the bigs by then and offloading or dropping Raycroft outright at the end of the 08/09 season.

In reality, I wished they would have saved the $ on the Toskula deal and landed a Kariya or Gomez; or just offloaded Raycroft. I still believe Raycroft is a great goalie, especially with the $2mil pricetag. He's got youth on his side, and doesn't seem to get too rattled on goals. Toskala's only been a #2 goalie most of his career. It'll be interesting to see if he can handle the extended front line duty.

Either way, this goalie battle will be good and bad. The good, will be expecting the top performance of both as they battle for #1. The bad, someone is gonna get benched, and its not easy if you were #1 to sit out most of the season.