TORONTO – “There’s a bunch of things that are ailing our hockey club. Youri Tielemans Jersey .” Randy Carlyle knew what was wrong with the Maple Leafs, but in a tenure that spanned 188 games and nearly three seasons, he could never do much to change it. He banged the drum loudly and repeatedly over a troubled tour in Toronto. It was about preaching, begging, coddling, kicking, doing whatever necessary to reach a group that ultimately remained, just that, out of his reach. The Leafs needed to have the puck more. The Leafs needed to play a “stiffer” defensive brand of hockey. The Leafs needed to stop relying unmercifully on their goaltenders, needed to stop relying on their powerful offence to win games. Carlyle knew all this. He said it often enough at the very least. “We need to find a way to get the most out of everybody,” said Carlyle in his old stomping grounds of Winnipeg, days before he was finally let go as Toronto’s head coach, the Leafs fourth since the second lockout. “That’s our job as a coaching staff. You don’t always have the luxury to say that you’d like this player or that player or this type of player. That’s not the way it works. You have an organization that provides you with players and our job, as we’ve said all along, is just to coach them up.” But be it because of a failed system, disconnected message, flawed personnel, or more likely, all of the above, Carlyle never got through to this group in Toronto. Dave Nonis, the Leafs general manager, said as much shortly after the firing was announced on Tuesday morning. “It’s been too much of a rollercoaster,” Nonis said in his typically stoic fashion, informing Carlyle of the decision late Monday evening. “It’s not that they’re not capable, because they are. It’s not that they haven’t done it, because they have. That’s probably the biggest reason or one of the biggest reasons for the change today.” There were times, Nonis said, that his group demonstrated what it was capable of accomplishing. He spoke as recently as this past summer and then again in training camp about the team’s success in the 48-game lockout shortened 2013 as reason to bring Carlyle back, if also firing three of his assistant coaches, oddly, in doing so. He said there were stretches again this season where the club showed itself capable, where it proved to be the “consistent team we were looking to be. But that’s not entirely true either. Even in winning times, this group showed itself as deeply flawed. They stormed through a month-long stretch with a 10-1-1 record, rarely achieving a product of quality. Rather, the Leafs scored in droves and then relied with increasing and alarming frequency on Jonathan Bernier. They’ve surrendered 40 shots or more in nearly a third of their games this season and sit just ahead of Buffalo in yielding 34.4 shots on average. They’ve been blown out more than every team but the Sabres, Oilers and Coyotes - nine times they’ve been beaten by three goals or more. In fact, the Leafs have played in more blowouts – both good and bad – than any team in the league. Twenty-two of their 40 games to date, alarmingly, have been decided by three goals or more. That’s a team that’s incapable of playing a style conducive to long-term success. His Leafs not only failed to keep the puck out of the net – despite often terrific goaltending – but failed to keep the puck at all with any consistency. They sit second to last in puck possession after finishing dead-last a year ago. Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf and James van Riemsdyk all notably saw their possession numbers plummet under Carlyle’s direction. van Riemsdyk, for one, held a 54 per-cent possession mark in his final season with the Flyers, tumbling to just 42 per cent this season. Beyond just the numbers was an often bizarre deployment and usage of players - a barely used, totally unproductive fourth line in recent seasons no better an example of that. This was a group – led by Carlyle – that was capable of very flawed highs and stunningly brutal lows. They ripped off wins at a blurring pace just before the Olympic break last year only to nosedive out of a playoff berth. They did the same again this year, winning 10 of 12 before losing seven of the next nine. There’s also evidence to suggest that repeated calls for improvement went unheard or if not unheard, then not absorbed by the group at large. Van Riemsdyk scoffed at the suggestion that wins early in the season weren’t always justified. “What’s a justified win?” he responded with apparent ire. Others in the room seemed to grasp something being off, that the formula undertaken in victory wasn’t necessarily best for long-term success, that repeatedly yielding 35-40 shots nightly wasn’t likely to bode well over the course of an 82-game season. Daniel Winnik called the firing a “wake-up call. It was the first time in his eight-year career that he’s had one of his head coaches fired. Winnik, though, felt Carlyle’s message was received. “[But] maybe at some points it wasn’t,” said Winnik. “There’s inconsistencies in our game, so maybe it was just inconsistent in guys receiving the message. That could be a part of it. I think when you’re as inconsistent as we’ve been it brings that to question.” “We were trying to do the right things,” added Cody Franson, “but for some reason we struggled to accomplish those details on a consistent basis. We share equal responsibility in that.” Nonis acknowledged the same during a meeting with players on Tuesday morning, informing them of the decision to fire Carlyle. But he also implicitly pinned much of the blame on the head coach. “It’s not that they can’t do it,” said Nonis of the roster, “it’s that our consistency hasn’t been there and it’s probably, not probably, it’s been trending downward for the last little while, where our consistency has actually been waning even more. You can chalk that up to players not listening if you’d like. But I don’t think it’s that they’re not capable, because they are. And that’s one of the reasons why we did this today.” These are not new troubles, though. These are the same failures of last season and even the late stages of a lockout year that ultimately ended in a long-awaited playoff berth. Failure to commit to defence, failure to possess the puck, failure to compete; long one of Carlyle’s repeated frustrations. All of which underscores the bizarreness and halfway measure of retaining Carlyle this past summer while firing three of his assistant coaches. “Randy deserved to come back,” Nonis said Tuesday, defending the decision, which saw Greg Cronin, Scott Gordon and Dave Farrish fired. “He had done enough to come back. We’d seen him do good things. We saw him do some good things this season. It’s not that he’s not capable. I think he’s a very capable coach. I think he’s an excellent coach. You don’t coach over 700 games without being good at it. Good coaches get let go and unfortunately today we had to do that.” But to suggest this solely being a coaching issue ignores the reality of what’s taken place in Toronto over the course of many seasons, not just a single 40-game stretch. In terms of the very big picture, these are issues that have lingered since the days of Ron Wilson and Brian Burke, issues also tied to a flawed core, one that’s signed up for the long haul no less. Kessel, van Riemsdyk, Dion Phaneuf, David Clarkson, Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak are all locked up until at least 2018. And they’ve proven to be leaders of a team that’s hardly been good enough to qualify for the playoffs, let alone win a Cup. Carlyle asked the same things of Kessel that Wilson did a few years earlier, neither able to make more than a slight dent in a player whose negatives ultimately outweigh all the offensive positives. To think that will change under another head coach seems naive at this point. “You never change a leopard’s spots,” Wilson told TSN Radio in a rare interview on Tuesday. “I think you paint over some of those spots, but they’ll eventually shine through the paint and that’s just too bad.” Team president Brendan Shanahan will get a chance to see how Kessel and that core responds under new leadership – Peter Horachek and Steve Spott will lead the bench together for an unspecified amount of time – but it can’t be long before restructuring of that core takes place. There’s just too much evidence to suggest that it won’t work, at least for the ultimate prize of a Stanley Cup. This core has shown itself capable of fringe playoff status and barely even that. “And we know that,” Lupul said last week of the core’s lacking success, “whether it’s me or Bozie or Phil or Dion or Naz or Clarkie, we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to show ourselves and coaches and management that this team is growing and there’s been times we have and times we haven’t.” Franson – an impending free agent who may or may not be part of that core in the future – said more “accountability” was needed in the room. “We as a group have to hold ourselves more accountable for what’s been going on,” he said. “We know within our room that we’re as at fault as anybody else.” Dissecting and then resolving that core could prove far more challenging than the simpler task of firing the coach. “The coach is easy to let go,” said Nonis. “That’s the easy change to make.” Untangling a web ultimately created by Nonis is really the grander challenge Shanahan faces in remaking the Leafs. What to do with Kessel and Phaneuf, who are under contract to 2021 and beyond? Where to turn to with the likes of Bozak and Clarkson? What pieces of the roster are worth salvaging and which pieces are worth spinning off for the betterment of the future? And given the size and length of certain contracts, which players are even capable of being shipped off if that’s deemed the appropriate step? These are the tougher decisions Shanahan faces. His two biggest decisions to date as the leader of the Leafs have been to retain Carlyle and then fire him nearly seven months later. His next big choice, beyond the roster, is hiring a full-time replacement for the man he retained briefly and then fired. Players were surprised to learn that Carlyle was being brought back in the summer months while his lead assistant, Farrish, was being fired. They were taken aback again Tuesday morning when they learned of Carlyle’s fate. “You hear it from the media all before the season and stuff and in-season that Randy’s on the hot seat and then it finally happens and you’re like, ‘Crap’,” said Winnik. “And it’s not like we’re a bad hockey team or we’re at the bottom of the standings or anything, we’re right in the hunt of the playoffs, I think that’s where it’s surprising.” Yannick Carrasco Belgium Jersey . The Heat centre scored 10 of his 30 points early in the first quarter to silence the Toronto fans as Miami defeated the Raptors 113-101 on Friday night. Yannick Carrasco Jersey . Louis Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia will have surgery on his left shoulder this week and is expected to miss the rest of the season. http://www.soccerbelgiumteamonline.com/Toby-Alderweireld-UEFA-European-Belgium-Jersey/ . - The Denver Broncos kept rookie wide receiver Tavarres King from joining the Green Bay Packers by promoting him to their active roster Tuesday.To be successful in biathlon is to be patient, focused and have stamina to keep up with the competition. Combining the endurance of cross-country skiing with the marksmanship of shooting, biathlon is arguably one of the toughest sports at the Winter Olympics. Yet for Canadian Jean-Philippe Le Guellec, all the elements an athlete needs to win in biathlon may come together for him today in the mens 10-kilometre sprint, being held at the Laura Biathlon & Ski Complex in Krasnaya Polyana. Originally born in Kingston, Ont., Le Guellec — hes nicknamed Tiji — became the first Canadian male to win a World Cup biathlon event when he won the 10K sprint in Ostersund, Sweden, in December 2012. This will also be Le Guellecs final Olympic competition. While Le Guellecs facing big challenges in his quest to land on the podium in Sochi, the three-time Olympian is looking like a real contender in an especially strong field. "I think podium is definitely possible. Everything has to fall into place, for sure. You have to have a good ski, you have to have a good shooting," says Le Guellec. "You dont need to be the fastest skier out there, you dont need to be the fastest shooter. But its an alchemy of both of them."Canadas also got two other competitors in the 10K: Nathan Smith of Calgary, Alta., and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T. The 28-year-old Smith is competing in his first Olympics in Sochi, and hes feeling good about competing this time around after missing out on qualifying for Vancouver 2010. "This is my first time here. Its really quite a spectacle. All the money and work that went into it is impressive. Seeing it in person is amazing. Dries Mertens Belgium Jersey. "Despite the optimism, today wont be easy for the Canadians. Theyre competing against the most decorated biathlete of all time — Norways Ole Einar Bjørndalen. Now attending his sixth Winter Olympics, the 40-year-old Bjørndalen is gunning for his seventh Olympic gold medal today. Norways got more than just Bjørndalen to contend for gold today, though: Emil Hegle Svendsen, a biathlon sprint specialist, is looking to take his third Olympic gold after winning two golds in Vancouver 2010. Svendsens closest rival is Frances Martin Fourcade, who also comes into the 10 kilometre as a medal favourite. The winner of the 2011-2012 overall World Cup title, Fourcade — he also has an older brother, Simon, thats competing in the same race — won the silver medal in the 15 kilometre mass start in Vancouver 2010 and is looking to upgrade to gold in Sochi. Theres still more competition for the top contenders, such as the home crowds favourite, Anton Shipulin of Russia. Yet the biggest competition for the athletes might be the Laura Biathlon & Ski Complex itself. Le Guellec describes the biathlon course as very tough. "The Russians have been boasting for quite a while now that its the toughest course out there. Toughest course in the world. And you know what? Theyre absolutely right," says Le Guellec. "They have vicious climbs and really technical downhills, which I absolutely love."Smith agrees that its a really challenging course. "This is my first time here and everyone told me it had a lot of hills - and it does. Its really impressive." ' ' '