Haters Gonna Hate..
PostedCOLON Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:14 pm
http://www.canada.com/sports/Healthy+Ph ... z1BxixJUWCTORONTO - By no means will Dion Phaneuf make any excuses.
But if you were wondering why the Toronto Maple Leafs captain has struggled this season, then you should know all the facts. And the fact is that up until about a week or two ago, Phaneuf has not been himself.
An injury that occurred on Nov. 2, when Phaneuf was sidelined for 16 games after an opponent's skate sliced his leg and partially damaged a tendon in his knee, has hampered the defenceman more than anyone really knew. It is the reason he has appeared slower and more tentative on the ice. And it might explain why he only has one goal this season.
Not that Phaneuf would blame a long-ago injury for his struggles. After all, he has been back playing for more than six weeks now. And even before getting hurt, Toronto fans had been booing the highly paid defenceman for his sub-par play.
"Your injuries aren't suddenly over one day and then the next day you're full go," head coach Ron Wilson said. "It's been a process for him."
The process included being able to remove a knee brace, which few knew he had been wearing, after the Christmas break. Since then, it has been a series of baby steps for the 25-year-old.
Phaneuf is at his best when he is playing an aggressively. There is no room for hesitation. Or fear.
So the challenge has been diving back into the action, without worrying about making a mistake or getting hurt again.
"I've asked him to be more physically involved and let the other team know early in the game that he's into it," Wilson said. "He has to be physical. That's when you really see him on his game. He's shooting the puck and skating better. That all comes from being physical early in games.
"Again, I had to really stress to him about being physical and he wasn't."
It was not until the Leafs played the Anaheim Ducks last week, in what Wilson called "his best game in a month," that the real Phaneuf finally showed up.
As soon as the puck dropped, Phaneuf looked interested. He hit anything that moved, located the net with his shot and finished the game with one assist and a season-high 28 minutes and 55 seconds of ice time. It was the kind of performance that the Leafs had been expecting ever since they traded for Phaneuf last season and then named him captain.
On Saturday, he replicated that effort in a 4-1 loss against the Washington Capitals, where he picked up another assist. General manager Brian Burke wrote in an e-mail that Phaneuf had been "a force all over the ice" and "was very pleased with his play."
But the people who are the most impressed have been his teammates.
They knew all along how badly Phaneuf was hurting and how frustrated he was with his play. But they also admired the fact that he had come back to help the team, even though he was far from being 100 per cent healthy.
"I was there in the hospital and I saw his leg," said defenceman Mike Komisarek, who sits beside Phaneuf in the dressing room. "I knew right off the bat that it was serious, that it was not something you get over in a day.
"The last week or two here, he's had that jump in his step. He looks faster, a lot more confident moving pucks. He's a tremendous player, a real key player on our team and he's now showing that he's one of the top defencemen in the league."
A two-game sample does not automatically put Phaneuf in the Norris Trophy contention. Nor does a long-ago knee injury excuse him from what has been a disappointing season.
But now that it appears to be behind him, there is nothing standing in his way of leading this team.
"If we're going to have any kind of success," forward Kris Versteeg said, "we're going to have a large part of it coming from Dion."