Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment announced on Wednesday that they will begin construction of a series of player monuments to be placed in Maple Leaf Square next to the Air Canada Center.
According to Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun, the first three players selected(one of which is deceased) of a group that may reach double figures when the project is completed in 2017 will be revealed at the club’s Fan Fest held in early September.
The list could include players from the Leafs Cup dynasty from 1942-1951, the 60’s dynasty from 1962-1967 and modern day Hall-of-Famers Darryl Sittler, Borje Salming, Doug Gilmour and Mats Sundin, as well as fan favorites Curtis Joseph, Wendel Clark and Dave “Tiger… Williams.
The posthumous selection is likely to be Tim Horton, who patrolled the Leafs blueline from 1952-1970, while names like Dave Keon, Johnny Bower, Sittler and Frank Mahovlich make sense for the other initial selections.
Who do you think should be the three selected???
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have a rich history that includes numerous All-Stars, Stanley Cup winners and Hall-of-Fame players. There have been 852 players who have donned the Blue and White since their entry into the NHL in 1917, with dozens wearing the same jersey number over the years.
In this completely non-scientific exercise, we’ll take a look at who wore which number and vote on who was the best. Some decisions will be so apparent that voting will not be necessary, as in the case of #93(unless there is a sizeable faction that believes that Alexander Godynyuk had a better Leaf career than Doug Gilmour).
#8
Of all the low jersey numbers that have been worn over the years, #8 is practically barren of any player who deserve acknowledgement on any best-of list. Hall-of-Famer Ace Bailey had it for a short time but switched to #6. Ron Ellis wore #8 prior to 1968 when Bailey asked him to wear his retired number in his honor.
The clear winner for the best player is winger Sid Smith, who was a member of three Stanley Cup winning Leafs teams in 1948, 1949 and 1951, was named NHL First-Team All-Star in 1955 and won two Lady Byng Trophies in 1952 and 1955.
What is more intriguing is determining the worst or most disappointing player to wear this unfortunate digit. The list of lesser lights is long and includes such luminaries as Pierre Jarry, Richard Mulhern and Chris Govedaris, but there are three players whose names unfortunately cannot be wiped from the memory banks of Leafs fans.
Dmitri Khristich(1999-2001)
Khristich was 30 years old and in the midst of a contract squabble with Boston with Leafs GM & Coach Pat Quinn swapped a 2nd round pick for the winger early in the 1999-2000 season. Khristich had averaged 25 goals per season prior to the trade and was signed to a four-year, $10 Million contract, but did not come anywhere close to putting up the same numbers in Toronto(15 goals in 80 games over two seasons) before being traded to Washington in 2001.
The real loss for Toronto in the deal was not the draft pick swapped for Khristich but the fact that forward Steve Sullivan was lost to Chicago on waivers to open up a roster spot and ended up playing 14 more seasons and 242 goals with the Hawks, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Phoenix and New Jersey.
Aki-Petteri Berg(2001-2006)
Affectionately known as the “Finnish Flop…, Berg was selected third overall by the Los Angeles Kings in 1995 but did not blossom into the hard-hitting two-way defenseman that the Kings envisioned. The Leafs acquired Berg in March 2001 for young forward Adam Mair and Toronto’s 2001 second round pick. Mair became an effective depth forward with the Buffalo Sabres, while Los Angeles used the second round pick to select Mike Cammalleri. Berg did not make any kind of contribution at the offensive end of the ice(10 goals in 325 games with Toronto) and was often victimized in the defensive zone due to his lack of speed and propensity to give up the puck.
Mike Komisarek(2010-2013)
Komisarek was thought to be the big, hard-hitting, defensive defenseman that the Leafs needed and GM Brian Burke inked the former Canadiens blueliner to a five-year, $22.5 Million deal in 2009, but a variety of injuries, a lack of footspeed and the expectations that came with the big contract plagued the blueliner for four seasons until the Leafs used bought him out of the final year of the deal in 2013.
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