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Originally Posted by 705techno
Ahh man I knew it.
The only years we were any good with Mats at the helm was when we had all star vezina caliber goaltending with CuJo and Belfour. Once they were done shining and we were left with average goaltending (Raycroft, Toskalol) we have failed to make the playoffs since. Yes Sundin was with us post lockout. I include that as part of the "Sundin Era". I don't think of these years fondly. We did have a couple runs, granted, but it was goaltending that got us anywhere close to sniffing Lord Stanley. The Sens dominated us every time we played them and it was our goaltenders who stole the series for us.
When I think of true heart from the early 2000's I think of Darcy Tucker. Gave it all for us and burnt out young, you failed to mention him. Nieuwy played one season for us and we got spanked hard by Philly in the second round that year. I agree with the rest, Stumpy only had a couple good seasons with us but he was still a contributor.
The last complete team we had (goaltending, defence, offence) was the back to back semi's in the 90's with Pat Burns as coach. The team Burke is building right now will be reminiscent of those days. Just need a coach like Burns who can instruct a more defensive system.
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93 was definitely one of the best teams we had obviously, but the fact remains, the sundin years are far better than anything Burke has done. I didn't mention Tucker because he isn't in their stratosphere career wise. Other players i didn't mention that were great were Corson, Green, Markov, Yuski, a lot of players that just battled hard and never gave up.
And it's sad that you blame Sundin for not making the playoffs with a bad team yet criticize him when he's on a good one. I remember 2 post-lockout seasons the leafs were close to making the playoffs was SOLELY because of Mats. Team had piss poor defense, terrible goaltending, yet he had so many games where he single handedly took over and won/tied games for us.
The Sundin teams went to the ECF twice and made the playoffs every year before the lockout, yet you give all the credit to this team that still has a lot to prove. I hope this team that Burke is building can live up to or surpass what the team in Sundin's heyday did, that's a lot to live up to. In the Sundin years we asked "can we win the cup this year?" In Burke's tenure the question we ask is "Can we make the playoffs this year?" Talk about times changing. I'll take those so called "terrible years" over these years at the moment thank you very much.