"Tin-foil hat".. funny.
I guess you enjoy watching this low-talent, pathetically less-than-mediocre team futilely struggle toward a goal that they can't possibly achive at this current point in time with the gosawful roster they currently employ. Each to his own, I guess.
Expecting mainly averagequality prospects to eventually graduate from the Marlies and be impact players on the Leafs is just mediocrity perpetuated ad mauseum. In fact, most of the current Marlies will never even get a good sniff at the NHL, despite how horrible the Leafs are. Regardless of the culture on the Marlies, even they aren't going to win anything without having several high-end prospects (with legitimate NHL potential) developing on the team.
If I recall correctly, when the Binghanton Senators won the Calder Cup a couple seasons back, the Ottawa Senators were in a better position to make the play-offs last season because they already had more legitimate NHL talent on their roster than the Leafs have had in any of the past 8 or so years!
And what have the Leafs gained from last season's Marlies team that's going to elevate them from a bottom-5 team last season to being a legitimate play-off team this season? Kadri? Fattin? Kostka?!? Yeah.. right.
Keeping the status quo will only perpetuate an endless cycle of mediocrity. The same thing applies to half-assed re-tooling efforts when there's virtually nothing in the minors to re-tool with. The Leafs have already got part of the eqation in place with a decent development program that's been established on their farm team. What they don't have is the other half of the equation: legitimate, high-end prospects wo can become top-line/top-;airing players at the NHL level. That is waht a properly-timed rebuild can do fairly quickly, if done correctly.
What I would love to see is this team "clean house" and finally acquirre the the high-end picks and prospects which can help to strengthen the foundation of this orgainzation and provide the bulk of the high-end talent the Leafs so desperately require to actually reach the play-offs and perhaps the Stanley Cup one day.
But to do that, the Leafs have to bite the bullet and commit to a rebuild. With an excellent Draft just around the corner, the Leafs would be idiots if they wated such a prime opportunity to cash in on all that high-lend talent by NOT trading the likes of Phaneuf, Kessel, and others who talents are currently being wasted on the Leafs anyway.
Capitaizing on other teams' needs now will eventually be more beneficial for the Leafs by giving them the wherewithal to improve more than keeping Phaneuf etal will. And I really don't care if it takes them another 3-5 years to properly rebuild this organization; I've been waiting for over 40 years to see this team win.. what's another 3-5 years if the desired outcome of becoming a legitimate, long-term play-off/Stanley Cup contender (a la Detroit) is achieved?
Not tomention, if the rebuild is done properly, it would only take 3-5 years to see it begin to bear fruit AND the develpment system would be much easier to sustain once the initial group of high-end prospects were gathered together and developing as a group, instead of a individuals.
I hope that's all clear enough for you to understand.
If not, ohwell.. not my problem.
Face it.. what this team has done up to now HASN'T DONE SQUAT, except maintain the current state of mediocrity surrounding this team and delay the inevitable. It's time for a proper rebuild!
