Back in the days of Darcy Tucker and company, the Maple Leafs were not only kind of good, but they were the one of the dirtiest teams in the league.
Even though the Habs/Leafs rivalry wasn’t very strong, the games at times got out of control. This is precisely why Montreal Canadiens fans love the elbow Alex Kovalev laid on Tucker so much. It couldn’t have happened to a bigger douche bag.
But are the Leafs still hateable? Is that something we can use to reinvigorate this rivalry?
Mikhail Grabovski is certainly annoyingly good and a Habs killer at that, but he’s not dirty. His hit did start the problems with Andrei Markov’s knee though.
Dion Phaneuf clearly suffers from the same overconfident bluster as now disgraced fired GM Brian Burke, and he’s definitely also annoying, but almost pitiable for his caveman-like intellect.
Mike Komisarek could have been a target for hatred if he was good, but he’s been the best thing the Habs could possibly have hoped to lose.
So is there a Leaf you hate? Do you hate the team, or are you ambivalent?
