TORONTO (Mar. 17) – The actors are substantially different but the plot is exactly the same for the Maple Leafs at this juncture of the National Hockey League season.
It is a virtual certainty in the post-lockout NHL that the Leafs will come on like gangbusters once the “quest” for a playoff spot has effectively ended. It is happening again in 2009-10, though the “quest” this season ended after the first eight games. Followers of the hockey club, however, are pinning their latest hopes on the fact this particular group of late-season achievers is almost completely devoid of the familiar veterans that couldn’t find their way. We’ll discover very early next season – when games begin to count for something, once again – whether this renaissance is an accurate barometer of the current, much-younger team.
Otherwise, the numbers speak with clarity. In the past five seasons (including this one), the Maple Leafs have an aggregate 54-38-8 record (plus-16) after Feb. 21st. Prior to that date, the club is a combined 121-133-45 (minus-12). This 28-game disparity late in the schedule reflects a couple of things… a) that the Leafs have never been so horrible as to finish a season 20 or 25 games below .500, and b) that the club unquestionably plays its best hockey when it least matters, in the absence of team pressure. The players on the current roster are different, but the circumstance – subliminal though it may be – is identical. The Leafs are essentially reduced to playing a cluster of exhibition games in the final quarter of the regular season.
How real is the latest mini-revival (5-3-1 since the Olympic break ended)? Perhaps more so than in any campaign since the lockout, for the bulk of the existing roster hasn’t been envenomed by constant defeat. In purging the club of its failed nucleus, Brian Burke has enabled Ron Wilson to entrust some dashing newcomers with prime responsibility. The early returns are agreeable to the franchise and its enormous following, though a truly legitimate challenge has yet to be provided, and overcome. Only when that happens will we be able to determine – irrefutably – if the Leafs have turned the corner.
Some will argue the burden a young player faces in proving NHL worthiness is equal to the task of excelling in critical games. In other words, the opportunism currently on display with Tyler Bozak, Luca Caputi, Carl Gunnarsson, Nikolai Kulemin, Viktor Stalberg and other youthful Leafs is inherently symbolic of team success down the road. Depending on the individual, there may be a correlation between the two but they aren’t necessarily the same. The mind-set of the abovementioned players is rather narrow at the moment; the young Toronto skaters are performing with diligence and flair, unencumbered by missteps that would otherwise handicap a team in a critical playoff scramble. The absence of such an obligation is immeasurable; neither can it be replicated.
Furthermore, once a player is reasonably certain he has made it in the NHL, the initial crusade dissolves. It is supplanted by a much heavier burden – the demand to flourish according to circumstance, and to do it intricately, as part of a team. That’s a much bigger chore than the impressive new Leafs are facing right now.
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The debate over the Phil Kessel deal with Boston continues to rage, and will probably flare intermittently during the next few years. The severity of the argument will be largely dependant on the players the Bruins draft with the first-round picks they received from Toronto. If, for the sake of argument, Taylor Hall goes to Boston and quickly develops into a front-line performer [ala Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos, Matt Duchene], he becomes much more economically viable to the Bruins than Kessel is to the Leafs. Why? Because of the NHL’s entry-level salary restrictions – an aspect of the Kessel debate that is rarely mentioned.
Let’s use Duchene as a comparable. The former Brampton Battalion junior, playing for Colorado, is neck-and-neck on most cards with Buffalo’s Tyler Myers in the race for the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie-of-the-year. Along with Paul Stastny and Chris Stewart, Matt is a vital cog up front on a surprisingly-good Avalanche team this season. Many observers believe he has only scratched the surface of his capabilities in the big league. Under entry-level rules, Duchene signed with Colorado for a base salary of $900,000 in each of his first three seasons ($2.7 million total). With maximum bonus allowance, his annual cap hit is $3.2 million – more than reasonable for a top-three player on any team.
During the same period, Kessel’s base salary with the Leafs is $4.5 million; $6 million and $6 million ($16.5 million total). His cap hit is $5.4 million, or $2.2 million per season higher than Duchene’s.
If the Bruins are able to draft a Duchene facsimile this summer with Toronto’s first-round pick, they gain an incalculable advantage in the post-lockout NHL. Most Leaf supporters will legitimately place the accent on the word “if”. Should the Bruins not receive commensurate value from a first or second-overall pick, the Leafs will unequivocally win this trade, and that’s what Burke was hoping for when he made the deal. Though he gave up a king’s ransom, he received a proven commodity.
The Toronto GM comes across disingenuously, however, by claiming he would make the identical swap, even if he knew he’d be yielding a top-three pick to the Bruins. I don’t buy that for a nanosecond. In fact, Burke was quite adamant in predicting – when the trade was consummated – that he felt the Bruins would be drafting somewhere in the middle of the first round. In no way did he expect his Leafs team would stumble so dreadfully from the gate, and stagger through another long, fruitless campaign.
As for Kessel, his value to the Leafs will optimally be measured in quality of goals, rather than quantity. Though many fans are appeased by his total of 26 goals in 58 games, there is no countering the fact that he went AWOL in the crucial middle stage of the season, when the Leafs still had some remote mathematical possibilities. Between Dec. 18 and Jan. 29, Kessel had two goals and eight points in 21 games. Any such disappearance as part of an improving Toronto team in years to come will severely diminish his acquisition. Perhaps the slump was fallout from missing training camp, and the first month of the schedule, with a shoulder injury. But, it doesn’t jibe with Kessel exploding for 10 goals in his initial 15 games as a Leaf.
Timeliness and consistency are elements that Phil must embrace in order for the trade to work in Toronto’s favor.
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