The biggest change Burke made to this year's edition of the Leafs were to inject them with truculence. Leafs bloggers latched on to this word harder than a hungry baby would to a tit and why wouldn't they? Burke won a Stanley Cup with a truculent team! To illustrate just how infatuated we were with truculence, some of us were excited over having Garnet Exelby as a third pairing defenceman because of videos like this.
Sporting a 21-33-12 record through 66 games, I think it's fair to ask the question "Is truculence overrated?" (Obviously) To answer this, I took a look at the games we played this season. Through 66 games played:
- 29 of them had at least a fight. Our win/loss record in those games is 8-21 (.275 Winning %)
- We had more penalty minutes than our opposition in 26 of those games. Our win/loss record in those games is 6-20 (.231 Winning %)
- 16 of those games featured a fight(s) while we lead in penalty minutes. Our record in those games is 3-13 (.188 Winning %)
- In the 27 games where there the opposition had more penalty minutes and didn't feature any fights, our record is 11-16 (.407 Winning %)
*Outcome of games played may have differed greatly if Vesa Toskala didn't suit up for 26 games
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