Todd Bertuzzi looking for a Senators job while Randy Carlyle fired by Leafs

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      Just when you thought he’d quietly hung up his skates, Todd Bertuzzi is making a bid to return to the NHL.

      The former Vancouver Canuck last made headlines in September of 2014 when, in one of the most head-scratching—not to mention hushed-up—occurrences in NHL history, he was part of a payout to former Colorado Avalanche agitator Steve Moore.

      (You might remember Moore, who clearly didn’t understand the Code of Hammurabi—or the concept of what happens on the ice stays on the ice—suing Bertuzzi for a punch during a Canucks-Avalanche grudge match in 2004. For more on that, read here.)

      This fall, it looked like we’d heard the last of Bertuzzi on the professional hockey front. An unrestricted free agent, he failed to sign with a team for the 2014-15 season. The Ottawa Sun, however, is reporting that the 39-year-old has reached out to the Ottawa Senators. The winger is said to be looking to sign a 25-game tryout agreement with the Binghamton Senators, the team’s AHL affiliate.

      Bertuzzi last suited up for the Detroit Red Wings, registering 16 points in 59 games over the course of the 2013-14 season.

      In other NHL news, the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to be the biggest clown show in the NHL. This morning the perpetually hapless Laffs fired coach Randy Carlyle, who had the team fourth in the Atlantic division with 45 points and a 21-16-3 record. The Leafs, who are a point ahead of the Boston Bruins for the second wild-card spot in the east, had been struggling after posting a 10-1-1 record in December.

      Toronto general manager Dave Nonis said: “We felt we had to make the decision because of the direction the team was heading in.”

      The Toronto Maple Leafs have only made the playoffs once since 2004. That lone appearance, in 2013, saw the team implode in spectacular and completely hilarious fashion in a first-round series against the Boston Bruins.

      Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, the Maple Leafs led the Boston Bruins 4-1 with 15 minutes left in game 7. They would lose the game 5-4 in overtime. No NHL team had ever won a Game 7 after trailing by three goals in the third period. You can relive the magic here

      That collapse is, of course, only tangentially connected to what happened to Carlyle today. It’s just that Canucks’ fans love bringing it up as yet another reason the Leafs have a long tradition of being the most pathetic and inept team in professional sports.

      Comments

      8 Comments

      ursa minor

      Jan 6, 2015 at 1:56pm

      "the Leafs have a long tradition of being the most pathetic and inept team in professional sports."

      For a 'pathetic and inept team', the Leafs have won 13 Stanley Cups since they began in 1917, or one championship per 7.54 seasons, second only to the Montreal Canadiens who have a Stanley Cup for every 4.08 in their NHL history.

      The Vancouver Canucks have 0.00 championships over their 44 year NHL history. If they hope to reach the Maple Leafs' record of pathetic ineptitude, they'll need to win the Stanley Cup 13 times before 2069 while Toronto has endures a championship drought of 102 years.

      George

      Jan 6, 2015 at 2:35pm

      ursa minor, dredging up ancient history does not take away from the fact that the Leafs have gone without a cup in a span approaching half a century? T o put that in some sort of perspective, a fan who was 16 at their last win in 1967 is now approaching 64! To look at it another way, if you go back 48 years prior to 1967 you get to 1919 and from there to when they left the league in the 1930s, the Ottawa Senators won 4 cups in an 11-year span. In that same span Toronto won 3 - and 2 of those were not the Leafs!

      ursa minor

      Jan 6, 2015 at 4:04pm

      George - no it doesn't, but "the most pathetic and inept team in professional sports" amounts to pathetic and inept hyperbole from Canucks fans when our team has won no cups during a franchise history almost as long as the Leafs' championship drought.

      Sorry, but I'm one of the few Canucks fans who doesn't get the obsession with a team we only play twice a year, only met once in the playoffs, and even if it hasn't happened since 1967, still has Stanley Cup banners hanging from their rafters.

      As for choking in Game 7 vs. the Bruins last year, would Usinger remind everyone how the Canucks did in the playoffs last year? It's this kind of behavior that leads Canucks fans to be among the most despised in the NHL. Glass houses...

      Steve Newton

      Jan 6, 2015 at 4:47pm

      despised, maybe. But they sure know how to riot!

      K

      Jan 6, 2015 at 5:32pm

      Banners. How are those banners helping the Oilers today? On a cautionary note, the Canucks have not fired their coach but only have one more regulation win than the Leafs and are only in a playoff position in the West by two points. And it's not just Vancouver in a love/hate relationship with Toronto, the entire country feels the same way.

      Saw it coming

      Jan 6, 2015 at 10:41pm

      Has there ever been more of a surefire bet than "This thread will result in a 'Cups vs. recent history debate'"? What were the Bodog odds on that one?

      Hazlit

      Jan 7, 2015 at 7:13am

      The team should be called the leaves. I'm taking a leaf of absence from all you sports-addled philistines.

      Norman

      Jan 7, 2015 at 7:52am

      Bertuzzi did not just punch Moore in the head, he proceeded to ram his head into the ice. This cost Moore his career, and even if he was only a third or fourth line player, it still cost him future earnings a lot of us can only dream of. If he did not have a long career potential in the NHL there are other professional leagues in the world he may have played for.

      Bertuzzi was a good player in his time but this was still unacceptable thuggish behaviour. If you or I did this in the outside world to another person we could have ended up in jail and as well faced a civil suit that would of left us in poverty for the rest of our lives. Bertuzzi should consider himself lucky.

      As for bashing the Leafs the Carlyle firing was the typical reaction to get rid of the coach as opposed to ridding of the team of the internal cancers like in this case Kessels. Typical gutless management behaviour. Look at the current edition of the Oilers, firing the coach(s), their management just trying to hang in as long as they can, trying to deflect their inability to build a team of a combination of not only good talent but character players as well.

      So, how many Stanley Cups have the Cannots won? Like a previous commentator said....people in glass houses..