Tomas Kaberle

As a result of the unfortunate injury to Brian McCabe, the word on the street is that Kaberle is getting back some ice on the PK team.

This is beneficial for the player and thus the team on so many levels.

Throughout his career, Kaberles deficiencies when battling for ice and pucks have been well documented; reason being it is the single deficiency keeping him from greatness. (he has been shooting his last two years) Due to how intelligent and skilled a player he is with and without the puck, during the strong majority of his ice time throughout his career he rarely puts himself in these negative situation, but when he did he had his troubles.

Then jansen gave him a late cheap shot.

This season, Kaberle came back the strongest physically he has ever been, you could see it with each passing battle, game in game out. His movements to corners and loose pucks have been bursts of force; it’s a strategic aggression new to his game. His fencing game has improved as his stick check is winning battles consistently now.

The other difference to this season was his exclusion from the PK team for the first time in a long time. While carrying a little more muscle mass then usual will take time getting used too, I am begining to think his removal from the PK may have had the most negative impact on his start and thus the growth of his season. Since he began his career with the Maple Leafs 9 years back, it became obvious that the second longest serving member of the team took a lot of pride in the Maple Leaf and put forth immense amounts of effort and skill to be great in every situation, otherwise he wouldn’t have made the impact he had being an average sized less aggressive defensemen.

For a player of Kaberles experience, more ice=confidence.

Playing along side a confident Kubina, Kaberle will be epic tonight and in moving forward.