Leafs' downfall

Now that we can take a little breather from the Habs' playoff push, I thought I'd comment on the Maple Leafs and their situation, in the aftermath of last week's games in Montreal. A lot of Leafs fans and observers thought - and wrongly so - that the Leafs would be the dominant team they have been for the past 7 years. The fact is, the Toronto organization is built around putting bodies in the ACC's seats and selling jerseys, not on competing for the Stanley Cup. Brian Leetch and Owen Nolan are two examples that immediately come to mind, but, by far, they are not the only two players the Leafs have brought in more for the novelty than for a Cup run, although they are very talented players.

For the longest time, Toronto has acquired rent-a-players that just didn't pan out, and they've pretty much emptied the farm to do so. With the exceptions of Alex Steen, Kyle Wellwood, Tuukka Rask, Justin Pogge, Carlo Colaiacovo, and maybe Aleksander Suglobov, the Leafs' future is looking pretty bleak. Their pre-lockout spending sprees and over-the-top deals are finally catching up to them, and it's going to take them some time to restock the system.

What also hasn't helped is that John Ferguson Jr. has caused tension in the front office, and his transactions to date have produced mixed results at best. Jeff O'Neill, Eric Lindros, and Jason Allison were brought in in an effort to continue their marquee spending ways, but the Leafs were already too old and too slow and adding more older, slower players to the lineup didn't help. All the focus is on whether or not Pat Quinn should get the boot after this season, but while Quinn seems to have lost his touch with both the Leafs and Team Canada, I would put more of the blame for this year's failures on Ferguson than on Quinn. While other teams were preparing for a salary cap world way before the lockout, the Leafs' GM simply didn't anticipate what the new NHL would be like and didn't prepare his team accordingly.

The Canadiens, on the other hand, seem to have recovered somewhat from their drafting blunders of the 1990's. Hockey's Future magazine ranks the team's prospect system as the sixth-best in the League. I guess when you're not doing well and you can't buy players like the Leafs can, you have no choice but to improve your drafting and scouting departments.

In any case, what the Leafs need is to purge as much of the old NHL out of their system as possible. That includes, but is not limited to, Ferguson, Quinn, Allison, O'Neill, Ed Belfour, Luke Richardson, and even Darcy Tucker. They need to clear space under the salary cap and rid themselves of the components that are dragging them down. I could see MLSE hiring Quinn to take over as GM, since he has always been cozy with ownership, but the Leafs need to start anew. They've got a ways to go before they can become the playoff team they have been for so long.

Getting a Stanley Cup banner from a later time than when bell bottoms and thick glasses were popular? Well... that's a whole other story.