Is it time to bring Curtis Joseph back?
There are rumors thet Curtis Joseph could be leaving Phoenix, and he said to the Star a few weeks ago he’d “prolly only wanna play for Phoenix or Toronto”. Which got me to thinking, is it time for the Return of CuJo?
Curtis Joseph is obviously up there with Orlando Hudson, Chris Bosh, Tie Domi, Don Cherry, and Mats Sundin as Toronto’s most loved sports personalities of all time, and while I like Belfour, I believe it’s time for a change.
I’m not going to get into any deal specifics, there’s no point, as it’s unlikely any ways, I would really just like to point out why CuJo should come back.
With some pretty bad Leaf teams, CuJo never lost the first round of the playoffs, with 3 playoff series wins over the Sens, one over the Penguins, one over the Flyers, and one over the Isles. Though he lost to the Canes, Sabres, and the Devils twice. Really you can’t blame him for any of them. The Leafs D crumbled (and a bad give away by Mogilny) causing the Leafs to lose in OT to the Canes, the Leafs only got 6 shots in one of the last games to the Devils, and Hasek was magnificent in 99 for the Sabres. I can’t remember what exactly happened in 2001 against the Devils, but it wasn’t CuJo’s fault in the least. So you’d expect that Belfour in half the time, should win half the playoff series as CuJo did in Toronto, but no, CuJo had 6 wins, Belfour so far has 1, and the Toronto teams Belfour played for were significantly better then CuJo’s Leafs.
CuJo showed up playoff time, and while the Leafs ussually play well (just not well enough!) in the playoffs (and yes, they play above themselves… just that’s not above Philly!) they have failed several times with Belfour, the only team they’ve been able to beat under him, CuJo beat 3 times, and come on, it’s Ottawa, we ALWAYS beat them in the playoffs. Might not this year, but it’s not the point.
Right now, CuJo is cheap, available, and possibley the best goalie in the world, with Vokoun, Marty, Kipper and the Dominator competing for the top spot, not to mention, CuJo (unlike the other 4) has never played on a team with a compitent defensecore, and still put up just as good/almost as good numbers. People will say CuJo’s no good all they want, but look at Phoenix, then look at Vokoun’s Preds, or Hasek’s Sens, or Brodeur’s Devils, or Kipper’s Flames, or Turco’s stars, and then try to figure out why CuJo’s numbers are right up there. The number one d-men on those teams are Redden, Zubov, Rafalski, Zidlicky, and Regehr, all better then CuJo’s Derek Morris.
So who else wants CuJo poll, could Micah, Lint, or Mikster, who ever posts this (if it does get posted) put a poll here for Leaf fans. I really think a change of goaltending would be great. The turning point in last nights game was the weak Heatley goal. We had a good forecheck going on, and some great penalty killing till then, and then we collapsed. Sucks to be a Leafs fan.
CuJo come home!
We did not make this up. We’re not aloud to make stuff up.
-L