The great Johnny Bower acknowledges his fans.

Leaf fans: Johnny Bower says thanks.

The China Wall was voted the Leafs best ever-goalie by an overwhelming margin in our Facebook poll.

http://www.facebook.com/torontomapleleafs .

“I’m just happy to be in the top 100,” said the Leafs Hall of Famer. “I’m so excited to hear that.”

Hard to argue with the ageless one who won the kudos a mere 42 years after his final Leafs game.

There are, however, a few dissenting opinions. Add an influential name to poll respondents William Fam, Paul Skinner, Steve Kis.

Nancy Bower.

That’s right. ...

The biggest name shuttled from Air Canada Centre to Ricoh Coliseum is a well-rounded goalie who can talk a bit.

Joe Bowen is back in the minors, broadcasting home Marlies games 31 years after his apprenticeship ended – wait for it – in the Montreal Canadiens’ organization.

“Amazing,” Bowen said, “considering how I feel about them now.”

Leafs broadscaster Joe Bowen.

Bowen spent seven years as the play-by-play voice of the Sudbury Wolves in the Ontario Hockey League when word reached him of an opportunity with the American League’s Nova Scotia Voyageurs.

The Voyageurs ...

He may have been tutored by the great Jacques Plante but the Leafs new goaltending coach found his first mentor when he was eight-years-old.

“I was playing in my hometown of Kenora, Ontario” said former NHLer Rick St. Croix. “A coach came into the room and said ‘who wants to play goal?’ I threw up my hands and said ‘I do, I do.’ My brother Vic was there. He’s 10 years older than me.  He had played a little bit of goal so he gave me equipment and helped me get ...

The stars seem aligned for Nazem Kadri.

The Maple Leafs are freeze-dried until further notice. Barring a groundbreaking deal the Leafs will eventually need a skilled centreman on the first line, especially since coach Randy Carlyle has labeled the prospect of James van Riemsdyk in the middle an offhand remark gone viral.

Ah but to have a superbly-skilled young pivot with sparkly draft credentials. Maybe a player who has put up something close to a point a game in the American League; someone who delivered at that rate in the AHL playoffs. ...

The last time the NHL locked out its players (2004-2005) Jason Spezza, a player with 114 NHL games already under his belt ran away with the American Hockey scoring title. At 21, Spezza was skating for the Sens affiliate in Binghamton when he carded 32 goals and 117 points in 80 games.

Manchester winger Mike Cammalleri, a player with 59 NHL games with LA already to his credit ripped home 46 goals and finished second in the scoring race.

Leafs’ prospect Kyle Wellwood, in his second full season in the AHL finished ...

Ted Kennedy wraps his arms around an old friend. Kennedy  won the Stanley Cup five times and was the last Maple Leaf to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP.

Ted Kennedy is the greatest-ever Maple Leafs centreman.

Not Doug Gilmour, not Mats Sundin nor even the marvelous Dave Keon.

Ted Kennedy. Teeder.

The key word here is great. Great is impossible to define. It can be quantified through statistics but greatness…greatness is an element that transcends numbers.

Ted Kennedy was great.

I was writing a book on captains of the Maple Leafs in 1995. ...

If you find this man surprising you haven’t been paying attention.

As Leaf fans await the expected announcement of the team’s new goaltending coach, here’s a thought to get you to the next news day. As an unexpected bonus I have a second thought.

First: I have no first-hand knowledge of whether Francois Allaire was a good or a bad goaltending coach, a valuable sounding board to his goalies or a tragic autocrat.

The only people who know, who really know, are players and other coaches and if you take  Burke’s word ...

Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke agrees there was interference with goaltending consultant Francois Allaire but said the pressure came in an attempt to spur a revamp of Allaire’s techniques.

“I regret that I have to deal with this matter publicly but I feel the need to respond. Was there interference from the staff as he said there was? Yes. But it was done reluctantly and it was done to change elements of our goaltending that was sub-par.”

Burke, who hired Allaire away from his former team in Anaheim three years ago, ...

Is this the guy?

No one can predict when the Toronto Maple Leafs will begin their season.

Everyone knows what the topic of conversation will be when they do: goaltending.

The Leafs netminding scenario is perfect talk-show fodder. You see what you want to see.

“If this is the group we start with and we think it’s going to be,” Leafs GM Brian Burke said of a tandem of James Reimer and Ben Scrivens, “we’re comfortable with that.”

“James Reimer is a guy who started off great and then got hit from the side ...

Expect Korbinian Holzer to be wearing Leaf colors when the season resumes.

It’s true; you can’t teach big but there’s nothing stopping you from going out and getting it.

Two of the Leafs newer bigs, Korbinian Holzer and Tyler Biggs are summering in Toronto, scrimmaging and working with Leafs skating coach Barb Underhill.

A sidenote here: watching Barb Underhill rocket around the ice wearing hockey skates is to observe a master at work.  Her students – Holzer and several prospects are among those working with her -say they are gobsmacked by the power and ...

Steve Staios, the newest member of the Leafs’ management team, played 1001 NHL games.

Steve Staios remembers the chair.

“I was seven years old, living in Hamilton and a coach asked if I wanted to play hockey,” said the newest member of the Leafs management team.

Soccer was the sport in the Staios household. Staios was a first-generation Canadian born to Macedonian parents who lived above and operated a convenience store in Hamilton’s Westdale neighborhood.

“I had to have a cousin show me how the equipment went on,” he said.

While the other kids ...

Who will be the hub of the Leafs’ number one line?

While incumbent Tyler Bozak put together an 18-goal, 47-point campaign, Leafs GM Brian Burke is convinced Bozak is better suited to a lower spot in the lineup.

There are three internal candidates for the spot between Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul: Joe Colborne and Nazem Kadri of the Marles as well as newly-acquired James van Riemsdyk.

Joe Colborne’s fortunes are looking up now that he has finally stopped growing

Joe Colborne

Age: 22

Hometown: Calgary.

Height: Six-foot-five and a half.

Weight: 220 lbs.

Shoots: Left.

Strengths: Exceptional reach. ...

Hindsight, it seems, loves Mats Sundin.

The 13-year-Leaf is a first-ballot member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

He has been accorded the highest available honor in the shortest time possible.

In a season that included the raising of his number 13 to the rafters at Air Canada Centre, any  lingering questions about Sundin’s place in the pantheon of the team’s finest players, and that of the NHL greatest, has evaporated, for now, forever.

Sundin will be inducted with Pavel Bure, Adam Oates and Joe Sakic, November 12 at the Hall, a slapshot away ...

JVR compares being acquired by the Leafs to being traded to the New York Yankees.

The New York Yankees, Jerry.

That’s the analogy James van Riemsdyk, the newest Maple Leaf, made while discussing his new hockey address, Saturday.

The Leafs acquired the 23-year-old leftwinger in a one-for-one exchange for 22-year-old defenceman Luke Schenn.

“To go to a place like Toronto is unbelievable,” van Riemsdyk said via cell. “The tradition they have.  I grew up a big New York Yankees fan. It’s like playing for the New York Yankees of the NHL.”

“Toronto has always ...

The Maple Leafs have landed Philadelphia power forward James van Riemsdyk

Pittsburgh –The Maple Leafs have landed winger James vanRiemsdyk in a trade for defenceman Luke Schenn.

News of the trade leaked out hours after the end of what seemed an uneventful entry draft.

The long-anticipated deal sends the 22-year-old Schenn to play with his brother Brayden in Philadelphia. The Flyers needed a defenceman because of the long-term injury of their captain Chris Pronger.

The 23-year-old van Riemsdyk, the second choice in the 2007 draft has been beset by injuries. This year he ...

Matthew Finn was a solid point producer and all-around defenceman for the Guelph Storm.

Pittsburgh – Matthew Finn has gone from a bud to a Leaf.

A member of the Leafs Buds Club when he was a kid living in Etobicoke, Finn was the Leafs second round choice, 35th overall at the NHL draft.

A six-foot, 195-pound left defenceman, Finn had been rated a mid first-round pick. Finn scored ten goals and added 38 points with the Guelph Storm.

Former Carlo Colaiacovo is Finn’s second cousin and until last year Finn kept posters ...

The Leafs made Moose Jaw Warrior defenceman Morgan Rielly their first pick, fifth overall.

Pittsburgh – Morgan Rielly wants to get one thing straight.

“I learned in school it was I before E,” he told his first ever-big league press-conference. “I always thought I had it right.”

I before E it is.

Rielly, a six-foot, 190-pound defenceman with the Moose Jaw Warriors adds to an already stacked position. The Maple Leafs hope to graduate Korbinian Holzer from the Marlies to the big club this fall. Jesse Blacker will enter his sophomore season with ...

Is this Brian Burke’s moment?

Every great team is built on one or two spectacular decisions perched atop countless years of smaller ones.

For the champion Los Angeles Kings, the future crystallized in the acquisition of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter.

For the Boston Bruins it was the free agent signing of  Zdeno Chara. Brian Burke’s bold move to draft the Sedin twins provided the Vancouver Canucks with an elite cornerstone tandem. The Rangers made the jump when they signed Brad Richards.

For the first time in his tenure, the general manager of the ...

I’d take the guy on the left.

I think Alex Galchenyuk is the guy.

If he is there at five, I think the Maple Leafs draft him.

As one hockey guy put it, just because Nail Yakupov was bestowed the title as the number one guy doesn’t necessarily means he deserves it.

Wish I could say I gleaned this intel from the Leafs brass. Seems they have more important things to do than tell me their plans.

But had the Sarnia Stings centreman not torn the MCL in his left knee and missed all ...

When Phil Kessel was drafted fifth overall in 2006, the pick was worth 90 cents on the draft dollar.

Trade the damn fifth pick.

Really. Trade it.

Take that fifth pick, the Tim Connolly, Blake Wheeler, Raffi Torres fifth pick. The one that has over the last five years yielded Karl Alzner, Luke Schenn, brother Brayden, Nino Niederreiter and Ryan Strome.

That one.

If you can get a solid offer move it on down the road.

Most number fives play with some distinction in the NHL. Some, Phil Kessel comes to mind, are tremendously talented.

But ...