Jason Allison - Second Verse Same As The First

Josh "Wolfey" Wolfe-Maxwell
August 31, 2009.

Almost every sports media outlet is reporting that Jason Allison has been granted a try-out with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In 10 NHL seasons thus far, the 34 year old centre has only racked up more than 30 goals in a season twice, although most seasons he was producing a respectable near-point-per-game. His worst seasons came in 96-97 with the Capitals (53 games, 22 pts), and 99-00 with the Bruins (37 games, 28 pts).

Statistically, that’s not bad, but these years came before the lockout, when slow, underachieving players could still have a successful NHL career.  Allison has only played one season since the lockout, and that was his only season with the buds, where in 66 games he produced 17 goals and 43 assists. Those stats remain viable in the NHL, but the post-lockout NHL has changed even more since that year, it is a place where small, speedy goal-scorers are successful, and big, slow playmakers are not. During his one season with the Leafs, the fan reception of him was awful, Leafs Nation deemed him a burden on the roster, and nothing more than a turtle on skates.

Now enough with these boring statistics proving his potential worth, which in my mind is nothing to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Brian Burke’s Leafs needs someone who can score. Not another Matt Stajan or Jason Blake whom gets no more than 60 points a season. Allison is not the kind of guy Toronto needs. All he can do for Toronto is bump one of our budding stars out of the line-up (i.e. Tyler Bozak), causing us to look more like that JFJ team that could do nothing. Allison was signed in JFJ’s era…Burke shouldn’t even consider signing someone that shows glimmers of John Ferguson Jr’s past tenure as a failure.

On the plus side of granting Jason Allison a try-out, he can give the younger players more motivation to play harder and show stronger signs of roster eligibility. With Allison under try-out, it should be just enough push for the younger players to prove their worth, and show that they are worthy to play on our roster.