The Leafs Free Agency Ram Raid

If the 2008 NHL Entry Draft was going to be the linchpin onto which the Maple Leafs commenced its rebuild, then the July 1st free agency free-for-all was going to be a barometer with which to measure the organizations immediate ambitions.
Going into the first days of free agency, the Leafs had two options. The first was too play it frosty, pick up some low key, low cap hitters who could provide some depth in the roster whilst giving the team some substantial future cap space, or follow the traditional MLSE route and stack up several big, usually veteran, signings, putting of a true rebuild for instantaneous mediocrity and awkward ego clashes.
Thankfully the Leaf’s erred on the side of caution and picked up a couple of roster guys and a decent offensive presence nailing just 7.2 million on the cap limit and maintaining over 11 million in contingency.
Opening the days proceedings the Maple Leafs announced the return of Curtis Joseph, as much a memento of nostalgia, as a useful stop gap solution between Raycroft’s inevitable exit and Justin Pogge’s arrested development.
Having left Toronto in 2002, his previous incarnation for the Leafs, a three year stint between 98-99’ and 01-02’ saw three consecutive playoff appearances and two conference finals. Now 41, Joseph provided an adequate backup to Mikka Kiprusoff in Calgary where he posted 3 wins and 2 losses and a .906 save percentage last year and whilst little used, is known to be an excellent veteran presence in a young dressing room. Conventional wisdom suggests that 08-09’ will probably be Joseph’s final season and a return to Toronto as a career wrap up had always been in the mind for the Keswick, Ontario native for some time. Playing in front of a more defensively geared team, Joseph will provide good support to Toskala at a decent price so long as a prolonged period of usage is not required.
Three and a half hours later, the Leafs announced their second signing of the day and this one came as something of a surprise. Jeff Finger was welcomed as another defensive pick up but with a 3.5 million a year contract, a considerably number of eyebrows were raised in Toronto.
Entering only his third NHL season, Finger who is now 29, may be something of an unknown quantity outside of Denver, but as a team leader in hits, the overtly physical blueliner has come on leaps and bounds to tighten his positional play around his bodychecking tendencies and posted a +12 rating in a defensively lax team. Brought in, on rumour, as a potential replacement for Pavel Kubina who was being courted by the thread bare Blue Jackets, Finger is seen as a shutdown stay-at-home defensemen that could work well in a system awaiting Luke Schenn.
Nevertheless, considered a borderline 4th or 5th D-man in Colorado, Finger’s ability to be extremely solid and dependable does little to justify the 3.5 million cap hit Toronto have taken on him and the transaction has been a hotpoint of discussion around Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher since Tuesday. Fletcher was quick to point out that Finger was one of the few truly developing players available as a UFA on July 1st whilst waxing lyrical about his work ethic; meanwhile critics in Colorado were quick to scapegoat the rookie for a Minnesota goal in game 3 of the 2008 playoffs which effectively ended his time with the Avs’.
Either way a relatively immobile, low stamina, poor puck handling defenseman with a heart of gold, grinding ethic and decent cannon shot, he will be a dependable D in the vein of former Leaf great Ken Klee or a lesser Brooks Orpik, just a lot more expensive. One of the leagues dubious free agency deals.
From the Leafs most questionable acquisition to the most frugal, three hours after the ongoing debarcle surrounding the Jeff Finger deal, the Maple Leafs tied up former Dallas Star Niklas Hagman to a four year deal for a full half million less than the aforementioned, maligned D-Man.
Coming off the back of a career year in Texas, the unassuming Finnish left winger was something of a snap for the Leafs when nobody else came looking. Fletcher was wooed by the 28 year olds speed and offensive awareness having tallied 27 goals and 41 points in a full 82 game season last term. A consummate second or third liner for the Stars, Hagman’s goal finding flare will likely see him playing on the Toronto second, if not top line, whilst he also doubles as a useful second string penalty killer with a panache for shorthanders owing to his breakaway acceleration. Finishing the season with a total of eight game winning goals, a league wide tying 6th Hagman has proven to show up big late in games with a temperament and consistency much vaunted in an increasingly makeshift lineup. A long time friend of Leafs goalie and fellow Finnish international Vesa Toskala, Hagman is an accomplished pro and competitor and rounded out the first day signings in astute style.
Two days after the Leafs tied up Hagman and all but ceased their interest in the major free agency movements, the collective eye was on a trade falling under the radar. Swapping either side of the great Canadian rivalry, Toronto acquired Mikhail Grabovski from the Montreal Canadiens for the rights of 2008 draftee Greg Pateryn and Toronto’s second round 2010 draft selection.
An irksome return to newly drafted ship outs and draft selections all too common in Leafs history, Belarusian centerman Grabovski comes off the back of a good World Championships and successful stints in the AHL posting 20 points in 12 games and with the Canadiens where he posted 9 points in 24 games. Only 24, Grabovski has real potential stunted last term by a 25 game lay off. Nonetheless a injury shortened season into his NHL career, Grabovski is recognized as a speedy skater with an excellent offensive touch, albeit against AHL goaltenders. Particularly unphysical in his approach, Grabovski offers a lot of heart having been a popular franchise man for the Hamilton Bulldogs where he was a familiar and friendly face to staff, a nice touch for a highly paid athlete. Probably a third liner with second string power play potential, Grabovski has prospective talent that the Leafs will need.
Naturally the flip side saw a few players leave in the touted cleanout, but off the back of three poor seasons and a notorious inability to develop prospects, many of the depth players have had few NHL suitors. In fact, outside of the free agency period, much of the revolver door action occurred before July 1st as the Leafs cut loose the driftwood in buyouts and waivers. Raycroft, Tucker and Wellwood predictably exited whilst one of McCabe or Kubina look Ohio bound, but the biggest story in the free agency period remains the will he won’t he saga of Mats Sundin.
Long time captain on a terminally uncompetitive team, at least in the last few years, with a prolonged period of rebuilding in the woodworks, it would seem an apt time for the Swede to leave. However, with the Canadiens apparently chucking money at the 37 year old in a vein attempt to right the wrongs of the mid season trade deadline fiasco, questions still remain over the future of the Leafs poster boy. With the trade deadline three days deep and the interest of the Canucks apparently ceased, Sundin’s outlook appears to be a three horse race, the Leafs, Canadiens or the golf course.
With 11 million dollars worth of cap space, it’s unclear if the Leafs are planning for Sundin’s return, or preparing for his retirement. Whichever side the coin lands, the Leafs are going to be a very different beast in 08-09.’ Clearly not playoff contenders from the very start, with Wilson molding the team around his defense orientated strategy the Leafs seem to be stacking their roster intelligently with one eye on the future. Sure the Finger deal may be financially bad, but many in Denver prized the underdogs defensive presence and the Hagman transaction was one of the deals of the day.
It’s refreshing to finally see the organization start to put some genuine thought into the trade and drafting process with a mind on the roles incoming players will fill, Fletcher and the MLSE look like they are slowly getting their act together and hopefully, in time, the boys in blue and white might start doing the same on the ice.

Shall we call it Toronto's "interim" season?

Interim is the word at Toronto
With the recent announcement that interim GM Cliff Fletcher will be kept on by Richard Peddie for next season; Leafs fans around the globe can be assured that the franchise isn’t turning tack, no, with a new coach in place, now seems to be the perfect time to hang stalwartly on for, as everybody knows, Brian Burke, furthered more so today by Toronto’s cheeky acquisition of Al Coates as player personnel director, Burkes number two in Anaheim.

Clearly another year of tedium is stretching out into the horizon before we can endure the long death crawl of rebuilding that the Los Angeles Kings have become such fine poster boys for. It’s good to see that that Peedie and Kirke’s top candidate list turned into the predictable dud we all knew it would be.

Now, I can understand the MLSE’s reluctance, heck it’s been eyeing up Burke for some time now, being constantly shooed away like a horny dog by the Anaheim upper echelons with the position being dubbed as nothing short of salvation for the Leaf Nation. But with draft day coming and the free agency free for all upon us, it’s an unusual time to opt for an “interim GM” that was chased out of Toronto in 1997 after a series of inept and desperate trades saw the Leafs derail after four straight playoff years only to be brought back to cut trades that Ferguson Jr. could never cut, and make no trade moves whatsoever. Sure he didn’t want to make trades for trade’s sake, but a little bit of mixing up couldn’t hurt in a lame duck season. Instead it was a case of once bitten twice shy for Toronto’s former trigger happy now trigger-less GM, whose past seems to have given him something of an identity crisis. In the meanwhile Peddie has been lamenting the bleakness of Toronto’s immediate future to anybody who will listen, no surprise owing the Leafs recent propensity to trade away prospects in dumb, knee jerk deals.

Subsequently the hiring of Ron Wilson came as a refreshing change in tempo; the Leafs actually got out there and nailed their candidate, if not the right candidate. Hopefully he may be able to breathe an ethos of accountability through the roster and kill of the comfort zone many of the Maple Leafs have been playing in for the past couple of years. Still there is a sharp edge and stubbornness to Wilson that he could do well to learn from his past mistakes, i.e. Patrick Marleau. Constant public flagellation will not go down well with players used to Maurice’s soft handed approach. Furthermore Wilson’s ego has been known to clash with superstars, whilst he will not be faced with that kind of superlative in a talent starved Leaf team, the media induced fish bowl could prove Ron Wilson to be his own undoing if the team fails to perform and with an interim GM at the helm, failure to perform could become a mantra under Ron, a coach who will have to temper his famed manic highs and lows, if he is to endure a rebuild.

Nevertheless, the opportunity to steel a team and a system from his own vision maybe the kind of task that would see the arrogance of Wilson shine through into the fine, stable coach he has always threatened to be. Whatever you surmise, he will have to wait a year to begin building anything as his first task will be to dismantle, an act in itself made more difficult with an interim GM with trade impotence. After all, Wilson is going to be looking for some younger, sportier models to shape into his roster; preferably good puck possession players, as the driftwood is offloaded, but questions arise over Fletchers ability to shape such deals (such as the Sundin/Kaberle deal that was supposed to bring Phillies’ Carter, Montreal’s Higgins and a bunch of draft picks to Toronto but failed to materialize).

Buyouts and free agency seem to be the theme of the day then in the clear out. Tucker is an outstanding favorite to be bought out and will almost certainly be gone in the next few days if his no trade clause can be negotiated and Raycroft will more than likely join him unless management sees fit to send him down to the minors for his final contract year. Blake had been mentioned, but with four years remaining on his contract (albeit minus an NTC), buyout maybe too expensive to be worth pursuing and somewhat tactless in the face of his leukemia battle whilst Mark Bell was quickly herded out in San Jose by Wilson after a hit and run DUI accident and after a series of personal issues, including possible imprisonment, Bell’s future remains uncertain. In the meanwhile, the blue line faces potential change with a chance that one of Kubina or McCabe will be shipped to free up some cap space.

On the free agency front, odds are that fringe players such as John Pohl, who had a poor last couple of years, will be left unsigned alongside number three goaltender Scott Clemmensen and the final transaction in John Ferguson jr’s. reign, Dominic Moore. It would also take a brave man to resign Wozniewski who had become something of a pariah in the Air Canada owing to his occasional defensive ”spasms”.

The big dice in the Toronto UFA lineup remains captain Mats Sundin, after years of loyal service his treatment in and around the trade deadline in February was shabby, but the Swede seems to show little drive to move elsewhere despite motioning that he may test the FA waters or retire. Conventional wisdom suggests that he will return to Toronto, although with a rebuild in the pipeline and his trade weight down significantly owing to his age, a lot of people wonder why Toronto’s management are dangling a “No Trade Clause” under his nose when they were so keen for him to waive his current “NTC” this year, although it’s probably because they know he is now worth nothing.

Perhaps a useful veteran to build a fresh team around, he will never win the big one in his time in the blue and white, but many believe he lacks the ambition anyway.

Of the restricted free agents the Leafs are in talks with Mitchell, Stajan and Wellwood whilst most expect the franchise to persevere with Foster and Ondrus. Stajan’s resigning is of the utmost importance as well as John Mitchell who has been impressive for the Marlies and could prove to be an excellent player in a period of rebuilding, but question marks still hang over Wellwood who had a disappointing season of the back of several injuries leading many to suggest he isn’t built for the NHL. Whilst he is a prime candidate to ship out, some would question the likelihood that any team would be willing to give up a third round draft pick for him, or if the Leafs would do better to just low ball him into a small cap hit contract.

Whatever the turnout in the next couple of weeks, the current lack of a full time GM means that the Leafs growth will be stunted. Sure a lot of players will go before next season, most for absolutely nothing, begging the question what exactly is Wilson going to have to play with when the free agency is all said and done? Perhaps if the Leafs can resist the temptation to throw prospects out like confetti, sign Brooks Orpik on the FA, stop putting No Trade Clauses in every contract and pull off a couple of good drafts on the back of what is likely to be some dreadful on ice seasons, the Leafs can start to build on the Pittsburgh model. But were a long way from there yet.