Leafs Want to Copy Kings
 

http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/...afs-coach-says

Well, he's missing a few pieces:

1) A two-way #1 Center with size and skill

2) A two-way #2 center with grit/determination

3) An elite defensman who can eat tons of minutes.

4) An elite goalie.


They seem to have decent wingers and grinders in the bottom 6.

They could've gotten 2 of those 4 things had they not made the Kessel deal.

Haha, that is so true. The Leafs don't have any centers that are even close to the level of Kopitar or Richards. Kessel and Lupul is their version of Carter and Williams, but they don't have a power forward that is anything like Dustin Brown.

And like you pointed out, they don't have a game changing goalie in net and they sure as hell don't have a Doughty on the back end. Now had they not traded for Kessel and kept those draft picks that would have been Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton, and if they hadn't dealt Tuukka Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft, they'd be in a significantly better position.

AKA the most important pieces in the game today....

Kessel and Lupul have been far better than Carter/Williams last season.

I also don't think you need a high end no1 dman....NYR/NJ had good dmen but not a Chara or Pietrangelo type who's so good at both ends. Doughty was average at best during the season, stepped it up in the playoffs but it's not like their PP was amazing outside of the infamous penalty.

They do need improvements in the top four but if Reilly or Percy and another dman develop well then they're in great shape their.

For the elite goalie, they're a rebuilding team so they can afford another season or half season of trying on Reimer and seeing if he bounces back.

Burke will probably be canned this season or next, and the Kessel trade will be pointed at as his primary downfall. Just a stupid, stupid trade to make when an obvious rebuild was in order.

Good luck with that, Burke

Really? Take a look back at previous winners....DD/Chara/Keith/Lidstrom/Pronger+Neids....outside of having Malkin/Crosby you need a #1 Defender.

Lets look at centers.....Kopi/Toews/Crosby/Dats/Gets/Staal....you need a #1 center....

Only thing that is debatable, is the franchise goalie, but the last 2 years are reversing a trend of it not being that important...so time will tell.

Exactly. Well put. Feel sorry for Leaf fans. Reminds me when we had Allison, Palffy and Deader. We should have rebuilt but we just restocked. We had 3 key players we built our dreams around when we really knew they couldn't carry us to the cup.

I am just happy we finally did a true rebuild, Toronto and Calgary should do the same. Their poor fans deserve a better future then the false promises they have.

When you're right you're right.

Also, Tony is spot on above. Toronto should have rebuilt instead trading for Kessel.

I have no ****ing clue what Burke is doing.

Frankly, I think it's impossible to rebuild in Toronto. Having read their board for a long time and having seen how wildly varying the reactions are to every move, I don't know how anyone could run the team into the toilet in order to make it better and get away with it. I don't blame Burke for making that trade at all, making a panic deal was something that had to be done in order to appease the masses and his bosses.

And if they're trying to replicate what we have here, they don't have any of those main core type pieces that we have. We are stacked with top end talent and have elite players at center, defenseman, defensive defenseman (Mitchell), maybe LW (Brown) and goalie. They don't other than Kessel.

I don't agree. Burke was the new GM of the Leafs at the time and if he wanted to do a full rebuild, his bosses would have said yes. The Leafs were (and are still) terrible. The fan base in particular was welcoming a rebuild at the time with open arms. The Kessel trade was baffling to everyone who reasonably expected a rebuild was in order.

Those first rounders Burke pissed away would have been blooming on the team by now. All this time later all the Leafs have done is gone sideways. The fact that CBC subjects Canada to the Leafs every weekend should have caused a mutiny by now. How much terrible hockey can a country stomach on national TV? A lot apparently.

It's going to take a GM with a lot of huevos to do a full rebuild in Toronto. It's too bad, because Burke had the cache to do it. He could have said we're going to do this the right way and start from the ground up from the onset. But instead, he went with the win now plan, which is what previous Kings GMs have done from the beginning of time. The market probably won't allow for it, so they'll be in that constant cycle of not horrible enough to really rebuild, unless they hit lightning in a bottle with a draft choice or FA signing.

Burke already failed. If you want to copy the Kings, you have to bring in a player so that he could join his brother (Carter and Richards), not trade him away so he could join his brother on another team (Luke and Brayden).

In all seriousness, I didn't realize that they've been bad in the post-expansion era. They have more Stanley Cups than conference championships. Well, that doesn't really sound bad but it really means they haven't won the Cup in the expansion era.

Toronto is also the only team that hasn't been in the playoffs post-lockout.


Carlyle should look at the Kings current roster and the Ducks 2007 roster, then look at his current roster. :laugh: Maybe Burke will overpay for Penner. :dunno:

Burke was the wrong choice for Toronto. They have all the money in the world and they hire a GM that won't spend it. He refused to give out long term deals that are front loaded.

At least dean was willing to try with Hossa, Kovalchuk and Richards. And he traded for Richards and Carter, both who have cap-friendly, front-loaded deals.

I give Burke credit for making moves to get that Anaheim team over the hump, but for the most part, he and Carlyle got lucky. They walked into an excellent situation that was set up by Bryan Murray, then they had Neidermeyer and Selenne fall right into their lap.

They won't be so lucky this time in Toronto. Burke's lack of patience has already cost him.

@Johnjm.

Everyone has some luck.

Burke was set-up well in Anaheim but so was Bowman in Chicago (Kane, Toews, Keith), Shero in Pittsburgh (Malkin, Crosby, Fleury, LeTang) and Lombardi here (Kopitar, Quick, Brown). Burke was not blessed with elite talent to build around like those guys were.

And Phil Kessel is grossly underrated on HF because he plays for the Leafs. The Leafs have a ton of holes, #1 center is not one of them.

Although I will say, unless Burke evolves away from his obsession with toughness and playing goons like Lombardi did (which culminated in the firing of Murray) the Leafs won't go anywhere.

Who is their #1 center? I'd argue that's one of their biggest deficiencies.

Who is this center? Grabovski?

Kessel is a winger.

Agreed. And Kessel is only 24.

Our "panic move" won us a cup while some thought it was Deano's last as the Kings GM.

Just some food for thought folks, nobody thought this rebuild was even close to finished in March so some of you should really stop thumping your chests.

Kessel has played both positions in his career.

The fact remains, the Kessel trade was not nearly as bad as people on this site make it out to be. If Hamilton develops into a good d-man it will not be a good trade for the Leafs, but lets not overreact here, Kessel is a point per game player with some of the best hands in the league.

Yes, but Carter was the last move, not the first. Lombardi always viewed the wing as the last component and sniper the least important. He already built from the net out through the middle.

Carter was "the piece" that put all of his other moves together.


Yes, Kessel would have been a great get if they already had the other pieces to the puzzle. Just like adding Carter last for Lombardi.

Wingers seem to be moved the most and are the easiest to add to a lineup. Hell, Burke was able to add another winger just a few days ago. He's hoping to convert him back to a center.

Brad Richards was available and Burke should have had a Kovalchuk-esque contract waiting for him to sign. Instead Burke took the "moral" high ground and offered him a standard contract. No way was that going to get him to not sign with NY. Toronto has plenty of cash to pay these front-loaded contracts, Burke just refuses to offer them.

As much as id love the Leafs to some day copy the kings, there years and years away from such a feat. Burkes a clown.