Part two of three
Prior to the cancelled 2004 to 2005 season, the Leafs had an ill-advised pattern of trading away 1st-round selections for unproven and/or unspectacular (and sometimes rental) players in order to make a run (albeit a short one at
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best) in the playoffs. They would also opt for band-aid solutions in the form of signing relatively-big names but past-their-prime unrestricted/Group III free agents (at least 31 years old) to long-term expensive contracts in order to fill roster voids on a short-term basis. For instance, Leafs Nation should remember how former General Manager John Ferguson, Jr. infamously traded away the rights to future Star Goaltender Tuukka Rask to the Boston Bruins for inconsistent counterpart Andrew Raycroft (who won the 2004 Calder Memorial Trophy before regressing significantly the year after) on June 24, 2006 and then made a nearly-identical mistake less than a year later by trading yet another 1st-round pick and a 4th-round pick to San Jose Sharks for unproven Starting Goaltender Vesa Toskala and uninspired forward Mark Bell on June 22, 2007.
Unfortunately, with the introduction of the salary cap, the Leafs are now forced to think long and hard about how they ought to spend because they now have to fit the contracts of their 23 NHL roster players within a spending ceiling, just like the other 29 NHL teams. The fact that the historical franchise has unlimited financial resources is no longer as beneficial because it cannot utilize the funds as a competitve advantage against small markets, given that spending over the salary cap ceiling will result in cap circumvention that would lead to severe penalties imposed by the NHL. Any attempt to manipulate NHL salary cap rules would be voided by the NHL as the New Jersey Devils did when long-time General Manager Lou Lamoriello tried to sign explosive Winger Ilya Kovalchuk to a 17-year contract worth $102 million on July 20, 2010. A similar move would lead to heavy sanctions, just like the one that the Devils received (originally, the team had one of its future 1st round selection taken away by the NHL after which it was restored but the franchise had to pick 30th/last in the 1st round).
This means that the Leafs can no longer resort to the old ways of doing things, i.e., by using their financial might to sign and typically overpay for unrestricted free agents (e.g., former General Manager John Ferguson inked talented but often-injured Centre Jason Allison to a 1-year contract worth $1.5 million on August 5, 2005; second-pairing Defenseman Pavel Kubina to a 4-year contract worth $20 million on July 1, 2006; and Winger Jason Blake to a 5-year contract worth $20 million on July 2, 2007). These deals masked the lack of young elite talent and superficial organization depth, all of which are the unavoidable consequences of decision makers continuously trading away the team’s top draft pick(s) in the NHL. In other words, the short-sightedness of Leafs management, which has been going on for years, was finally exposed and catching up to the team.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the Leafs are located in Toronto, a traditional hockey-crazy market. Given that a large portion of the fans are impatient and want to see a winner as soon as possible, they are not willing to wait for the team to rebuild. Leafs management are also hesitant to conduct a true rebuild because they do not want to upset the fans and endanger profits (after all, each of the 41 Leafs home games at the Air Canada Centre are sold out prior to the drop of the puck in Game 1, even if an inferior product is put onto the ice). As such, we are caught in this never-ending cycle of mediocrity: neither good enough to be a true contender for the Stanley Cup nor bad enough to secure a franchise-type player with high lottery picks in the NHL Entry Draft. By either barely sneaking into the playoffs (and then getting knocked out in the 1st round) or just missing the playoffs, the Leafs have further set themselves back because they will pick in the middleorlower-half of the 1st round in the NHL Entry Draft and it would be next to impossible to draft a program-changer (e.g., Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Towes, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, and Drew Doughty) at that draft position (granted Shea Weber was surprisingly drafted by the Nashville Predators with the 49th overall pick in the 2nd round of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft). The more realistic outcome is that they will get a solid second-line player.
So how can we escape the cycle? What do we have to do to turn the fortunes of the franchise around and send the team down the right pathway? Stay tuned for Part 3 of my article.