My initial reaction to what the Leafs did.
What the hell happened there? John Ferguson didn’t get younger, he didn’t load up to make a playoff push/run, he didn’t cut ties with bad players, and kinda semi-rebuild. He did nothing.The two Leaf trades were.
To Toronto: Luke Richardson
To Columbus: Conditional 4th Round Pick
To New Jersey: Ken Klee
To Toronto: Alex Suglobov
Now, what they’ve done, is down graded their defense for this year, and aged it by 3 years, adding a prospect that has been noted for constant problems with being constant. Consistancy is a huge issue for Alexander Suglobov.
Klee vs Richardson. In their prime, Richardson vs Klee, Richardson wins. But Richardson is 37, Klee is 34, and Richardson is more expensive.
Now really look at this deadline. They had three options BETTER then this option.
a) we could trade Belfour, McCabe, Tucker, Domi, Sundin, Allison, O’neill and the rest for high picks and prospects.
b) Load up on names, with 1.5 million in initial cap space, and an extra 1.5 million due to the injury of Lindros, and a player after the deadline costs 20% of their normal salary according to James Duthie. That’s about $15 million in base salary space they could have used to pick up Carney, Comrie, Bertuzzi, Ozolinche, or another big name.
c) Cut ties with worthless overpayed players such as Berg, Antropov, and the likes, and replace them with better younger players and/or prospects.
Last night I looked at this deadline and I thought, ok, they’ve kept themselves as good as they were before, Richardson is just about as good as Klee, and we get a prospect. But one prospect with consistancy issues isn’t gonna help our future, and Richardson over Klee is not terriffic for our presence.
I think what the Leafs really need is to hire Donald Trump to randomly select John Ferguson to be a contestant on the show “The Aprentice”, Ferguson would quit his Leaf position to get a job with the Don, and then get fired.
Am I the only one who wants Grapes as GM and Coach? If not as both then get Brent Sutter as coach.
Life’s tough when you’re a Leaf fan.
-L