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Good Work, But More To Be Done

February 1, 2010, 4:34 PM ET [ Comments]
Howard Berger
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
TORONTO (Feb. 1) – Though the roster overhaul engineered on the weekend by Brian Burke was timely, necessary, potentially rewarding and breathtaking in scope, it has shifted immediate responsibility to a neophyte segment of the hockey club.

The Maple Leafs’ general manager is acutely aware that he cannot possibly trade six players in one day and avoid the effects of manpower depletion. The old yarn about acquiring the best player in a trade could make Sunday a watershed moment in double-B’s reconstruction of the Blue & White, but there is still abundant work in the offing before the Leafs will be able to compete at even a mid-range level in the National Hockey League. Again, this is no bulletin for the Toronto GM.

And, it is most apparent in a segment of the roster that spawns yet another adage: a hockey team unavoidably needs strength and depth up the middle. As we speak, Tyler Bozak – he of 11 games NHL experience – is the Leafs’ No. 1 centre. It goes downhill from there – sharply. Bozak is followed, in no particular order, by John Mitchell, Rickard Wallin and veteran Wayne Primeau. All of these men have redeeming qualities [some easier to detect than others] but, as a group, they are frighteningly shallow. While considering injuries, limited playing time and overall performance acumen, the Leafs’ centre-men today have COMBINED for six goals and 20 assists this season.

Yikes!

Now, the obvious argument is that Burke did not execute Sunday’s shake-up for the benefit of the current campaign. Given the stakes involved in yielding his first-round draft choice to the Bruins in the Phil Kessel trade, he isn’t willing to admit that, but there’s no way of avoiding a minor detail in hockey: the winning team has to have at least one more goal than the losing team. Burke is doing his job correctly by building from the goal forward. If his club can stop making its usual assortment of amateurish mistakes – and goaltending proves more reliable – an immediate rise from the NHL nether regions is not out of the question. It is also logical to presume that the Leafs’ centre-ice roll-call three years from now will be vastly different than Bozak-Mitchell-Wallin-Primeau. But, it won’t happen by waving a magic wand, or by casting a spell on general managers around the league.

Assembling a gifted arrangement of middle-men will be entirely as difficult and involved for Burke as his striking reconstruction of the blue line… and every bit as mandatory. Bozak and Nazem Kadri may be integral parts of the equation, but there are no guarantees, particularly with the Leafs’ developmental history. And Burke, of course, will have to execute his makeover within the tricky parameters of the salary-capped NHL – an enduring complication.

But, Rome wasn’t built in a day and the Leafs haven’t been fully erect in almost half-a-century. As such, the moves Burke made on the weekend could be viewed in glowing terms before the middle part of this decade. Just two years ago, it appeared that Dion Phaneuf was on his way to an Al MacInnis-type reign in Calgary. MacInnis, as many of you know, was a stalwart blue-liner with the Flames in the 1980s; the Conn Smythe Trophy winner in Calgary’s Stanley Cup season of 1988-89, and owner of the game’s most terrifying slap shot. He is, today, an honored member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

During his infant years in southern Alberta, Phaneuf appeared – for all eyes – to be heading down a similar path. He, too, possessed an intimidating bomb from the point and was more of a physical presence than MacInnis. Any person implying, in 2008, that he’d be traded before his 25th birthday would have been recommended for therapy.

The same may have applied to an individual waking up Sunday morning and suggesting that Burke would be able to trade Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake within 90 minutes of one another.

Though Blake was a conscientious worker and a decent guy, his contract seemed embedded to roughly the same extent as the Burj Khalifa. Toskala hasn’t been able to string together an impressive performance-run in almost two full seasons and though he has undeniable talent, he might need to start taking his craft more seriously in Anaheim. Within 20 minutes of the Leafs stomach-churning loss to Vancouver on Saturday night, Toskala was openly yukking it up with Garnet Exelby in the Toronto dressing room. No one is suggesting that a player lapse into bereavement after a hockey game, but there should exist some degree of noticeable regret upon yielding a 3-0 lead on home ice; particularly when you’ve allowed the opposition to score a decisive goal with just 2:04 left in regulation time. If I’ll take one memory of Toskala with me, it’s that he rarely seemed bothered by an alarming defeat.

In the end, Burke may have weakened his current club by trading Blake, Toskala, Matt Stajan, Ian White, Niklas Hagman and Jamal Mayers, though the notion of weakening the 29th-best team in the NHL is rather absurd. It does, however, point to the urgency of Burke imploding the core of a losing roster – even for the mere sake of enacting material change. And, the acquisition of Phaneuf provides significantly more potential than that. Next to go should be Alexei Ponikarovsky and – ultimately – Tomas Kaberle… not because they are incapable of worthy toil, but as a result of lingering too long in this cesspool of incompetence.

Burke’s challenge now is two-fold: augmenting the Leafs’ puny attack in the next couple of years and doing so within the realm of cap management. That won’t be easy when considering the chunk of cap-coin monopolized by only five players – Phaneuf [$6.5 million]; Jean-Sebastien Giguere [$6 million]; Kessel [$5.4 million]; Michael Komisarek [$4.5 million] and Francois Beauchemin [$3.8 million]. This assessment presumes that Kaberle will be off the books by mid-summer – a safe deduction. In today’s NHL, the Leafs’ five-player total [$26.2 million] represents almost 50% of the entire cap figure.

But, Burke is far from alone in that predicament.

Other factors such as those in effect on the weekend – team disenchantment with a player [Phaneuf]; underachievement in the standings [Calgary]; a salary choke-hold at one position [goaltending in Anaheim] – will repeatedly present themselves in the months and years ahead. If the Leafs are able to adroitly juggle these myriad elements, Sunday’s roster upheaval will be looked upon quite nostalgically by followers of the Blue & White.

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