Grange on Leafs: Deadline dud
Posted February 27, 2012 6:06 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It takes a special kind of charm to generate sympathy for Leafs ownership, a cuddly combination of a pension fund, a cable company and a seller of phones.
But Ron Wilson and Brian Burke clearly have it.
The NHL trade deadline should have been a chance for Leafs fans to revel in the possibilities of a move or two that could have lifted their club into the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
Instead it came and went with the decision by Burke to stick to the plan.
Um, what plan? The one where they toy with the idea of trading young prospects for Rick Nash, the big, overpaid, under-performing winger to play with the big, first-line centre the Leafs still don’t have?
Or the one where they muse about shopping for a mediocre veteran goalie to further scramble the confidence of the goalies that Burke signed and Wilson has managed to bring out the worst in?
Maybe it’s the one where the old college pals talk about eradicating a so-called sense of entitlement in Toronto, even as Burke gives Wilson a contract extension worth a reported seven figures as a reward for never making the playoffs?
Or is it the one where Burke emphasizes that playing in the centre of the hockey universe is so demanding that he’s considering instituting his own pre-trade deadline trade deadline to save his hand-picked team from the pressures of being young, famous and rich in one of the world’s great cities.
Apparently playing hockey in Toronto is somehow harder than playing baseball in New York or basketball in Los Angeles or soccer in Manchester or hockey in Vancouver, for that matter.
Seriously. It’s a hell of a plan.
For most of the past two generations it’s been easy to pin the woes of the richest and most popular hockey team on the planet on doofus ownership.
The people could simply rage against The Man. It really was about as simple as that.
When Harold Ballard owned the team the Leafs were the victim of a cheap, corrupt, mean blowhard who seemed to revel in the opportunity to take lots of money from Leaf fans and provide little in return.
The out-going Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan revelled in making lots of money, but at least was willing to invest, even if they kind of bumbled.
The incoming strange brew of Rogers Communications and BCE will be interesting to watch. Chances are it will provide all kinds of opportunities for hard done-by Leafs fans to turn purple with rage as their cell/cable/satellite/internet bills climb and their favourite team’s Stanley Cup drought heads to its 50th anniversary with a bullet.
But the contrast between Burke and Wilson’s arrogance (without bounds) and the performance of the team they’ve assembled (without a top centre, goaltender or elite defenceman) suggests the vitriol, for once, should stop short of the top floor.
The current ownership has done everything they reasonably can, starting with hiring the most expensive general manager in the game and letting him do whatever he wants.
The result has been a face of the franchise who supports the Canadian military, is (admirably) outspoken in his support of gay rights and (not so admirably) the guy who signed Mike Komisarek and Colby Armstrong to contracts worth $33-million.
It’s standing room only in the Leaf’s management suite at the Air Canada Centre. Presumably they were all in agreement when they decided to trade Keith Aulie, a six-foot-six defenceman who they were all so high on a year ago for a minor league winger, Carter Ashton, who is scoring a little more than half-a-point-a-game for Tampa Bay’s AHL affiliate.
Defence apparently being a position of organizational depth, the Leafs 190 goals allowed this season notwithstanding.
In the good old days the Leafs would at least paper over bad signings by spending more on players. In a hard cap world under Burke they use ownership cash to hire new assistant coaches to help Wilson with his special teams.
The return on that investment isn’t evident, but we now know that a bad penalty kill or a flailing power play is not the head coach’s responsibility.
And while there have been some real success stories since Burke began loosening his tie and limiting media access to goalie’s Mums – trades for Joffery Lupul, Jake Gardiner foremost among them – there seems to be a troubling tendency to either over-rate their own prospects or do a terrible job developing them.
The two goalies Wilson has so freely pinned the blame for the Leafs slide on were both Burke signings and both, at various times, labelled just the person to fill the hole in the Leafs net that has been gaping since Ed Belfour left for the Hall of Fame.
According to Burke, James Reimer still is the man for the job, despite recent scuffles.
Should Leaf fans believe him? Should ownership?
Remember when Wilson said Nazim Kadri was going to be a superstar before he had played his first NHL game? Or how about Burke’s decision to sign Schenn to a five-year, $18-million contract extension ( a move precipitated in part because Wilson and Burke determined he should play in the NHL as an 18-year-old to further his development).
How is that working out?
It’s routine to suggest that Leaf fans deserve better. That they do. It’s been true for most of 45 years.
But it’s not often that you can say that Leafs ownership deserves more than they’ve been getting.
Credit Brian Burke and Ron Wilson for breaking new ground.
