Comments on: Assessing The Leafs and Their Problems

By: lukeleim

lukeleim — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:13:05 +0000

John Pohl, Hal Gill and Alexei Ponikarovsky to te Phoenix Coyotes for Nick Boynton, Fredrik Sjostrom and the Coyotes 5th-round pick of 2008.

Bryan McCabe to the NY Rangers for Nigel Dawes

Jason Blake - Mats Sundin - Nik Antropov
Mark Bell - Kyle Wellwood - Darcy Tucker
Alexander Steen - Matt Stajan - Fredrik Sjostrom
Nigel Dawes - Chad Kilger - Boyd Devereaux
-----------------------------------------------------
Bates Battaglia
Kris Newbury
Wade Belak

Tomas Kaberle - Pavel Kubina
Carlo Colaiacovo - Ian White
Nick Boynton - Anton Stralman
----------------------------------
Andy Wozniewski

Vesa Toskala
Andrew Raycroft

By: the_next_agent

the_next_agent — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:47:34 +0000

Toskala was a great gamble, he could be a great goalie, O'Neill was worth it, he was scratched the last 15 games or something and still managed 20 goals and 40+ points. The problem has been our defensive play. Everyone knows the Leafs can score, everyone knows that the Leafs are the easist team to score against. We have so many young offensive d-men but almost no true defensive d-man. I say we trade some of them and get a defensive d-man.   Some players i would be willing to part with are, Carlo Colaiacovo and Bryan McCabe. Ian White and Pavel Kubina have stepped up and shown they can handle the extra workload. The Leafs need to make two trades to fix their problems.

To Islanders: McCabe, Pohl, Harrison, 4th round
To Leafs: Hunter, Satan

Everyone knows that McCabe needs to go, he needs a new team to get his career back on track, while Satan and Hunter would help out the PP and PK

To Coyotes: Colaiacovo
To Leafs Boynton

Boynton would help out on th PK

The line-up when everyone is healthy would look like this

Blake    Sundin       Satan
Steen     Wellwood   Tucker
Hunter      Antropov    Ponikarovsky
Tlusty       Stajan       Kilger

Kaberle       Kubina
White      Boynton
Stralman     Gill

Toskala
Raycroft
Pogge
Clemmenson

By: leafy

leafy — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:35:55 +0000

Indeed, not a bad looking line-up.

I would put Devereaux and Gamache ahead of Pohl, but that's just me.

I like the fact that you put Stralmam in the top 6 D. He looks as good if not better than Kaberle in his rookie season.

Hal Gill is valuable at certain phases of the game, such as the PK. This further shows that the Leafs need to move one of either McCabe or Kubina, which adds an unnecessary $5M to the payroll.

By: lukeleim

lukeleim — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:02:58 +0000

healthy lineup:Jason Blake – Mats Sundin – Nik AntropovAlexei Ponikarovsky – Kyle Wellwood – Darcy TuckerJiri Tlusty – Matt Stajan – Alexander SteenChad Kilger – Mark Bell – John Pohl—————————————————————–Kris Newbury – Boyd Devereaux – Wade BelakBates Battaglia – Simon GamacheTomas Kaberle – Pavel KubinaBryan McCabe – Anton Stralman Carlo Colaiacovo - Ian White————————————–Hal GillVesa ToskalaAndrew Raycroft

By: leafy

leafy — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:02:56 +0000

As far as I'm concerned, there aren't enough articles on the Leafs.

You make perfectly valid points on the GM and coach, although your comments will certainly rile up several sensitive people on this site.

Having said that, it's still October. Since you wrote the article, the Leafs played a very impressive game against Pittsburgh, and have some very impressive youth, unlike 10 years ago when the team was a complete mess with just Sundin and Schneider in the way of talent.

If the Leafs turn things around, JFJ won't look nearly as bad and Maurice will have redeemed himself. The jury on this hockey season is still out.