from Damien Cox of The Spin at the Toronto Star,

--Another Monday, another beginning of the week with some in the media endlessly suggesting the Leafs are lucky, or playing on borrowed time. It's like there's this desperate hope that Randy Carlyle's team can go on a losing streak to legitimize some popular mathematical model.

--Vancouver gets Los Angeles tonight, and the Canucks are finding it tough sledding in their new divisional alignment, just 1-7 so far against the California teams and Phoenix. They're struggling to score under John Tortorella just as they struggled to score last year under Alain Vigneault.

The only difference is there isn't a day-to-day goalie soap opera. The Canucks are going to have a tough time making post-season play in the ultra-tough west. And what would that mean to GM Mike Gillis who has really locked the Canucks into potentially difficult long-term contracts?

The Canucks are starting to look like the Leafs at the end of the Mats Sundin era, desperately still believing they can win a Cup with a roster that can't.

Will Vancouver be different?

a few more hockey notes...