Pogge gave up on himself. What else is there to do but give him a fresh start elsewhere?

Of course it’s management’s fault. Never the player’s fault.

The 2004-05 Hitmen were nowhere close to a top team when he was traded here. Even with Getzlaf and Ladd, that was one mediocre squad for the first half of the season. The acquisition of Pogge made that team, and his performance in 05-06 played a very large role in setting a franchise record for GA. Same with the 06 world junior squad. It was not supposed to compete for gold, but that team rode Pogge all the way to the championship. For that year and a half, I’d argue Pogge was the best junior goaltender in Canada.

That said, his hype afterward far exceeded his talent, and really helped set the stage for his later failures. It was becoming obvious towards the very end of his junior career in Calgary that he had already peaked, as shooters in the Dub were starting to figure him out. I thought the Leafs were insane to keep Pogge over Rask when the deal was made. The pros just ate him alive. Hope he can rebound though. Pogge is a good kid, and I hope he can have some success in the NHL.

I don’t know that being given 7 games at the NHL level in order to gauge a prospect’s progress is force feeding him games. If the Leafs had brought him up and made him the starter after Toskala went down it would be a different story.

has been faulted for letting all the hype go to his head, and becoming lazy.
Of course, I also believe he’s been jerked around by the Marlies coach a bit much.

Apparently a lot of Ducks prospects will be on the Rampage as well.

Well… that was a weird post. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they would promote Pogge and keep playing given what would happen. I guess they weren’t tanking it, as they finally went and got Gerber (who did fine), but it sure looked like it right at that time.

Pogge was not good enough to be promoted. They could have brought up the other kid they had at the Marlies instead.

James was saying that the Leafs were tanking and they clearly weren’t or they would have given Pogge the rest of the year as starter after Toskala went down.

That’s Burke’s opinion as well. He has stated that Pogge has three of the four skills necessary to succeed but lacks mental toughness.

It was predictable that this:

The 2004-05 Hitmen were nowhere close to a top team when he was traded here. Even with Getzlaf and Ladd, that was one mediocre squad for the first half of the season. The acquisition of Pogge made that team, and his performance in 05-06 played a very large role in setting a franchise record for GA. Same with the 06 world junior squad. It was not supposed to compete for gold, but that team rode Pogge all the way to the championship. For that year and a half, I’d argue Pogge was the best junior goaltender in Canada.

Was going to turn into what Pogge has become?

Don’t forget James Reimer!

The enduring legacy of JFJ will be that every time he made a big move he should have just sat on his hands.

Could make the Rask deal better or worse. One of the idiocies that led to the Rask deal was that having two top-flight goaltending prospects is somehow redundant. The other idiocy was the just-one-player-away attitude that allowed them to trade a prospect without getting another prospect – or even a draft pick – in return.

If Pogge had turned into Steve Mason the Rask trade would still have been a disaster. Only Rask’s play will determine the disaster’s extent.

In retrospect it looks bad, but it was a bad decision at the time and a bad decision now. Knowing it was a bad decision at the time and the expected results coming to pass isn’t passing judgement on the past.