In the wake of the major roster overhaul of the Toronto Maple Leafs that took place earlier this afternoon, we have decided to postpone Episode 5.20 of the program until Monday night.

In two separate transactions, the Maple Leafs brought in four new players while saying goodbye to six players from the current roster. In one trade, goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere was acquired from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake. In a second trade, defenseman Dion Phaneuf, forward Fredrik Sjostrom and prospect defenseman Keith Aulie were acquired from the Calgary Flames in exchange for Matt Stajan, Ian White, Niklas Hagman and Jamal Mayers.

As a podcast, our medium’s strength is not in the breaking of the news – major news networks obviously hold an edge on us in that department – but in the accuracy of the information we present and the strength of our opinions once all of the chips have fallen into place. Having planned to record the show at 11am on Sunday morning, it would have been counterproductive to proceed while so much was still uncertain.

As a result, we will record Episode 5.20 late on Monday night for release on Tuesday morning with full details on both transactions as well as our opinions on who won the respective deals, what drove them and where it leaves the Maple Leafs going forward. Until then, we welcome and encourage your opinions on these two blockbuster deals!

Become an AFITC Insider by joining on Facebook. Send along listener email to afootinthecrease@gmail.com. A Foot In The Crease is now on Twitter as @AFITC. Follow our show for hockey news and updates on the show itself.

Caporusso, in his sophomore season with the Wolverines, led the team in goals with twenty three, leaving him with the second highest total in the nation at the end of the regular season. He also led the team in points with forty three and recorded two natural hat tricks.

Of the ten finalists selected by a vote from the fifty eight coaches throughout the country, a group of three finalists will be selected by the Hobey Baker Committee and announced on April 2nd, 2009.

You can help Louie reach the final three by logging on to www.hobeybaker.com/voting and casting your vote (for Louie). One percent of the ballot of the Hobey Baker Committee which is comprised of a coach from each NCAA Division I conference, scouts, media and a representative from USA Hockey is decided by a fan vote. Vote often!

Congratulations Louie on yet another outstanding accomplishment!

Michael Landsberg, host of TSN’s “Off The Record,� will join us this week on Episode 3.21 of AFITC to discuss the fallout in the wake of John Ferguson Jr.’s dismissal as Maple Leafs general manager on January 22nd.

We ask Michael if Cliff Fletcher is the right man to lead the Maple Leafs back to respectability, if Ferguson’s dismissal was handled properly by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, if Richard Peddie should be involved in the search for a permanent replacement to Ferguson and why the Maple Leafs lack toughness on the ice among many other questions.

Do not miss Episode 3.21 of AFITC with Michael Landsberg!

Come and join Dave and Jeff as AFITC records live from The Shamrock & Thistle Bar in Etobicoke, Ontario on Tuesday September 18th, 2007. Interact with the show as we will invite people to share their opinions and expectations of the Maple Leafs for this coming season on the program. Prizes are also in the works. Watch the Maple Leafs preseason opener along with other games around the NHL on that night in a fantastic environment with passionate hockey fans. It promises to be a tremendous night! Underage? Not to worry. This is an all ages event!

The Shamrock & Thistle Bar is located one block west of Islington Ave. on the south side of Dundas St. The address is 4923 Dundas St. West in Etobicoke. The event starts at 8:30 and the game at 9:00.

On the TTC, take the Subway to Islington Station and take the bus north on Islington Ave. to Dundas St. Easily within walking distance from the Subway Station itself.

Thursday night was a critical night for the Maple Leafs despite not being in action. Carolina, Montreal and the New York Islanders, all teams within a point of the Maple Leafs in the standings, took to the ice last night and produced victories beating Washington, Boston and Pittsburgh, respectively. As a result, all three teams usurped the Maple Leafs in the standings dropping them back down to eleventh place in the Eastern Conference. Now two points back of the final playoff position, the Leafs could jump back into a tie for eighth place tomorrow evening when they take on the Buffalo Sabres at the HSBC Arena.

While more inconvenient than detrimental, what Thursday's results did do for the Maple Leafs was increase the importance even more of their upcoming three games: a home and home series against the Sabres and a critical head to head match up with Hurricanes on Tuesday. These next three games will likely decide the Leafs playoff fate this season. Losing two of three could leave the Leafs in too deep a hole to climb out of with only six games remaining after the Hurricanes game. A successful result and the Leaf playoff push continues. These next five days will be the defining moment of the 06-07 campaign for Paul Maurice's boys.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's Leafs vs Sabres contest, look for all star defenseman Tomas Kaberle to make his return to the Leaf lineup after missing eight games with a concussion. He has received medical clearance and took part in his first full practice since the injury Thursday morning. Expect defenseman Andy Wozniewski to sit out in his place as he is still suffering from the affects of the flu.

Paul Maurice had hoped to practice the power play with all five members of the top unit now healthy at the same time for the first time since mid December but Kyle Wellwood threw a wrench into that plan when he left the ice after just five minutes had passed. He left the ice with tightness in his abdominal area but following treatment Wellwood reported improvement and expects to be in the lineup tomorrow.

Episode 2.29 of the program will be released late on Sunday night and will feature an interview with James Duthie, the host of the NHL on TSN, as he makes his second appearance on AFITC this season. He will offer his thoughts on the Leafs playoff hopes, the Senators chance of finally making some noise when it counts, the sudden rash of injuries suffered during fights and a whole lot more.

After a game against the Ottawa Senators, Brendan Shanahan showed that he's always working and just as dedicated, riding a bike post-game in true Sens fashion.

Watch as Patrik Stefan flubs an empty net goal and allows Edmonton to tie the game with seconds left.

Unbelievable.

Thanks to Google Video, here is Ovechkin's amazing goal.

Over the last few weeks and episodes we have experienced a sharp downturn in our audience. Some of our listeners have reported problems downloading our show in this time and it has led us to question whether these downloading problems are widespread and if they are turning listeners away from our show. Thus far we have been unable to find any evidence of widespread issues that could explain this much of a decline in our audience. Below is a graph of our audience decline. It seems highly unusual that the nice upward trend we had would suddenly stop and then drop dramatically without some sort of external factor affecting it.

Today Boing Boing is reporting that Rogers and Shaw Cable ISP services are causing widespread problems with podcast downloading through iTunes, downloads from the iTunes Music Store in general, BitTorrent and other P2P activity. This is clearly the problem we have experienced personally and have had reported to us by other listeners. It stands to reason that a podcast about hockey in Toronto would have a large portion of listeners using Rogers as an ISP.

This policy instituted by these ISPs is offensive to its customers and furthermore it is damaging the hard work of podcasters and other creators of legal online content. It is absolutely ridiculous that Rogers and Shaw are trying to pull of this kind of policy. What is even worse is that they are not even acknowledging that this filtering of traffic is taking place when customers report the problem.

We ask our listeners to be patient, and if you are experiencing this problem try downloading the MP3 directly from the site.

Since the publication of Episode 12 last Friday we have been experiencing widespread problems with downloads of the podcast failing from within iTunes. We apologize for these problems and ask that our listeners be patient with us until we can resolve this issue.

We're still trying to figure out exactly what is causing this problem, so if anyone is having trouble downloading, it would be appreciated if you could send us an email outlining the problem you're having.

This is just a quick post to tell anyone who is unfamiliar with podcasting how to subscribe to our podcast.

Probably the easiest way is to subscribe with iTunes. We are now in the iTunes podcast directory in the iTunes Music Store. To access this, click here. This link will open iTunes if you have it installed on your computer and take you directly to our page.

If you don't have iTunes you can subscribe from Odeo or subscribe to our RSS feed in any podcatcher such as iPodder.

The advantage to these methods is that they will automatically download new episodes to your computer as they are available. However, if you don't want to subscribe in any of those ways, you can directly download the mp3s of each show directly from the website.

- Jeff