Let's Draft Again (1999-2000)

Don’t you ever wonder how our team would look like if we had made the right draft choices instead of the poor ones we usually made? So many good players have been passed over for complete duds who didn’t even make the NHL because they didn’t know how to hold a hockey stick. This is why I have decided to look at some of the players we could have had if we drafted differently. Although we have to remember hindsight is always clearer then what the general managers see at the draft tables.

So basically I will start from the 1999-2000 draft all the way to the 2007-2008 draft because in those years I think we made some poor choices. The last two season have been not as bad and I will like to give credit the current scouting team for their excellent work in getting players like Schenn and Kadri. They might not be the best players in the draft but as of now they are two very good prospects. What I will do is i will redraft the seven rounds and instead pick the best player that went soon after the Leafs drafted. There will be times where I will decide to keep the players the Leafs selected due to them being good players and better then ones that followed them.

**The order of the players is by rounds... so first players is from the 1^st round and so on.**

1999

Players we drafted – Brad Boyes, Kris Vernarsky, Mikael Tellqvist, Jean-Francoise Racine, Miguel Delisie, Vadim Sozinov, Markus Seikola, Lubos Velebny, Alexander Shinkar and Jean-Philippe Cote.

Players we should have drafted – Brad Boyes (i would keep him), Antoine Vermette, Micheal Rupp, Dominic Moore, Lubomir Visnovsky, Darcy Hordichuk, Matthew Lombardi, Antti Miettinen, Alexander Shinkar (the guys after him sucked even more) and Simon Gamache.

This draft didn’t have much class at the spots the Leafs were picking but we did miss out on guys like Vermette, Moore and Visnovsky. These three would have been better additions then some of the weak talent we picked up. This draft didn’t hurt as much but then next few will hurt where it really hurts as die hard fans.

I will be back tomorrow with the next draft and it’s only going to get worse I am afraid.

Weight Room Transcript (Leafs Style)

This is a little transcript which gives you a little insight on the happenings of the Leafs (all fake of course). This has been perfected by Downgoesbrown but I am giving it a shot to add some energy to TML Nation.

(28 guys are working out in the weight room)

**Trainer walks in**

Trainer: NOOOOO... this can’t be happening... i’ll have to actually do some work this year!? I like guys like that fat kid we had last year.

Wilson: Are you talking about Wellwood?

Trainer: Never got his name.. cause he came once and that was by mistake. He was going to the Cafeteria and made a wrong turn.

Mike Komisarek: Hey trainer... can you help me with my weight lifting?

Trainer: What’s weight lifting? Never heard of such a term.

Burke: Have you heard of the term.. FIRED? Time to bring in the real boys!

**In walk two supremely fit trainers**

Burke: Boys I want....

Entire Team: proper levels of pugnacity, testosterone, truculence and belligerence!!!

Burke: That’s more like it!!!

Wilson: Burkie perhaps we should ease up on these boys... I mean it’s an optional training day after all.

Burke: BOYS! Tell coach what you do for guys who think this is optional!

Entire Team: We pray that they live to tell the tale of their encounter with Garnet Exelby in the Parking lot.

Garnet Exelby: I love the parking lot part the most. (gives a deadly smile to Vesa)

**Vesa Toskala faints**

Wilson: What happened to him? Don’t scare him guys!

Garnet Exelby: I don’t know what’s wrong with the guy, whenever i come near him he faints.

Luke Schenn: Ummm... yeaaaa... that’s my fault. I kinda showed him Exelby’s montage on Youtube.

Entire Team: Yikes!!

Kaberle: Where’s Poni by the way?

Burke: Caught him praying that JFJ would come back.

Entire Team: May Poni’s soul rest in peace!

Wilson: If you keep this up we’re not going to have any players for the first game this season

Burke: The opposition won’t have many players after the 1^st period.

Wilson: We can’t go out there and play like goons all the time.

Burke: Why not?!

Wilson: The point of the game is to score goals not hurt people all the time.

Burke: Why are you my best friend again?

Wilson: You’re crazy!

Burke: Thank You.

**The players trained for the rest of the day and are told to now live in the fitness** room*

Jason Allison is Back!!!

Jason Allison is back and I am so excited! Ok no I am not ... but it’s good to see the guy after he just disappeared off the radar for some time. An excellent player back in the day but it’ll be interesting to see how he copes with all the news things that have been slowly added to the NHL. Jason Allison’s willingness to even put on a pair of skates is tremendous and will make this training camp even more interesting for Leafs fans. Competition will again increase if he gets a hang of it out there on the ice very quickly. Also, him being a local boy doesn’t hurt the equation much cause that’ll bring back his passion a bit faster for this game which he randomly deserted.

Jason Allison was always regarded as a slow and sluggish in terms of his overall hockey abilities. There is no doubt though that this guy could put up the points when he was on top of his game. He was when at the top of his game a top 6 forward and a very capable one at that. His stats don’t lie even with the one year in 2005 here in Toronto he potted 60 points (17 goals, 43 assists) and that’s not bad for only 66 games. His best season was in 2001 and that was with the Bruins when he really was at the peak of his career and he potted a fantastic 95 points (36 goals, 59 assists). His performance on the ice in those years was phenomenal and I supposed that does make him acceptable for a tryout as this can only be a win-win situation for Burke and his team.

What would Allison bring to our team if he blew the coaching staff’s socks off at camp? Well he was known to have a flair for the net and thus was quite good at putting the puck in the net. His offensive talents were quite good indeed, and no one questioned them at all. His 6’3’’ frame didn’t do much to ruin his case as he used to do well in the corners and was tough to move once he was set on getting the puck. Unfortunately, that was if he reached the puck before the defender, and in most races he was second. This was always his problem because his skating was horrid to put it nicely and if he has improved on that facet of his game he might become extremely valuable. His passing skills plus his pass first mindset made him one of the finer passers in the game. He could pick players with ease if you gave him open space and he was respected for that from his teammates and the opposition. Although many questioned the wisdom of not shooting more in Allison’s case because he had a good shot back then and most people were dumbfounded that he didn’t shoot more often.

Whatever Allison does this training camp, this will only be a positive for the Leafs who could use some positive news in terms of handling players. This way Allison will only have good things to say about the Leafs and perhaps he might even show up as a really good hockey player. His experience will be invaluable as well because I am sure some of the younger players on this team will go to him and ask for some great tips that he might have. His tips about playing in Toronto could certainly help out in the long run for some of the younger guys who don’t have many experienced players to ask. Allison will come out firing but will he be rusty or not is the main question that the coaches will have.

This certainly is going to be an interesting camp for everyone involved. He will be scrutinised to death by the Toronto media and I can guarantee that.

Sophomore Jinx: Luke Schenn?

A lot of attention will be paid towards the offensive side of the Leafs game and that makes sense since there is a lot of young talent there. Although I will keenly be observing Luke Schenn’s progress in his sophomore year. The second year for an athlete is considered the hardest, because of the expectations from the fans, coaches and general managers for a repeat performance or improved performance

.

Luke Schenn showed immense growth throughout last season, and his level of maturity can never be questioned. He handled himself so well that there are shouts for handing him the captaincy for the Leafs already. Obviously i wouldn’t go that far yet, because he has to show how consistent he can be plus how he can improve his game even further. Toronto is at times a tough place to grow as a hockey player but Schenn has handled himself exceptionally well in front of the media and on the ice. Everyone would like to see his offensive numbers go up and I am sure he has worked hard on that aspect of his game over the summer, but he will have to remember what his main job is and that’s stopping the offensive stars of the opposing team. He did that really well last year but will he be able to do the same thing this year, with the offensive stalwarts around the NHL knowing his weaknesses a little better than they did last year when he was new to the NHL?

He fits the belligerence and truculence requirements that Burke has set up for the team and that certainly won’t be a problem. It will be interesting to see who is paired up with all the changes that have been made over the off season. I am sure Wilson has something in mind; I would think he might be paired up with Beauchemin who is more offensively gifted then Schenn is. They could be a lesser version of the Leafs’ top defensive pairing which will most likely consist of Kaberle and Komisarek.

It will be interesting to see how much ice time he’s given this year with the amount of quality defensemen we have in the team. I would think he will still get a lot of time if he plays like he did last year, because he was crucial to whatever little success we had at the backend. Schenn will be keen to get started especially after all the success he had last year, but he should remember that good hockey players can be found anywhere... it’s the great ones that are hard to pick out. He needs to become a great NHL defenseman and he has all the potential in the world to become one if he stays focused on the task. He doesn’t come across as a kid who will stop working once the money starts rolling in, because if he stops working he might see himself gone really fast.

I hope Schenn has a fantastic sophomore season and he surprises everyone with the improvements he’s made over the summer. This certainly is shaping up to be quite a season even before the puck has been dropped.

Rookie Tourney Squad Announced

The rookie tourney that will be held in Kitchener is shaping up to be an exciting one for Leafs fans as the roster was released today. The roster includes names like Bozak, Viktor Stalberg, Mikhail Stefanovich, Nazem Kadri and Jonas Gustavsson.

Player	Position
Alex Berry	Forward
Jesse Blacker	Defence
Tyler Bozak	Forward
Joel Champagne	Forward
Jamie Devane	Forward
Andrew Engelage	Goaltender
Stefano Giliati	Forward
Richard Greenop	Forward
Carl Gunnarsson	Defence
Jonas Gustavsson	Goaltender
Christian Hanson	Forward
Nazem Kadri	Forward
John Kurtz	Forward
Simon Lacroix	Defence
Brandon Manning	Defence
Juraj Mikus	Defence
Dale Mitchell	Forward
James Reimer	Goaltender
Greg Scott	Forward
Robert Slaney	Forward
Barron Smith	Defence
Viktor Stalberg	Forward
Mikhail Stefanovich	Forward
Adam Wallace	Defence

Squad courtesy of mapleleafs.com

Weekly Roundup of Minor Leafs News

“Weekly roundup of Minor Leafs news” is what I have decided to start as a little feature here at TML Nation. Yes I know it’s a Tuesday and this doesn’t make any sense at all, but I am still going ahead with it. Although I will be doing this feature on Sundays only from here on in. This will basically consist of news that perhaps is not worthy of getting a full article on itself but good enough for a paragraph in this feature.

I hope you guys enjoy this as I will be giving my opinion on these little news stories as well.

First up is a little story about Nazem Kadri and how his dentist decided that the wisdom tooth comes before hockey. Therefore Nazem will not be playing in the Euro Can Cup this year due to his wisdom being snatched from him. I don’t think Nazem would really be missing much by skipping this year’s Euro Can Cup and thus perhaps it’s good he sits out. Also, hopefully tooth decay doesn’t become a permanent fixture otherwise the Toronto media might not be so pleased.

Another little snippet on Nazem Kadri as Brian Burke told the media that Nazdaq will certainly be lacing up the skates in one of the first two exhibition games the Leafs will play this year. Hopefully Nazem can pot in a hat trick and show Burke what he’s missing out on. There will be a lot of pressure on the young man to perform right away and we should ease up on him if he doesn’t do much in the first game. I don’t think he’s that kind of player who can make the jump into the NHL right away, he needs to be eased in slowly and methodically.

A lot of stuff has been said about the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan buying more of the MLSEL and thus supposedly making us worse. I don’t think they are exactly the ones that should be blamed for how woeful the Leafs have played over the years and especially the past 4 years. After all these guys teach the kids of Ontario so let’s all ease up on the nerds. There are many other aspects of the Toronto Maple Leafs that you can blame such as the actual players, coaches and General Managers. Although you have my go ahead to do whatever you like with Richard Peddie.

Komisarek seems all set to play for our rivals USA as he’s considered to be a certain pick for the final team. I think that’s the right move as he’s a good defender to have in the backend and clearly Burke values him a lot cause he just picked him up for the Leafs as well. It’ll be interesting how much hurt Komi lays out at the world level, I think he will be handing out big bruises and broken bones about every time he steps out on the ice... I might be underestimating him.

That’s all for this week and I hope you enjoyed this feature. As you can see Nazem’s dental history wasn’t really worth making an whole article on neither was his chance to play in the first exhibition game. Although the Teachers’ invasion on the Maple Leafs is certainly something to be concerned about it’s still not good enough for me. Komisarek was close to getting his own article as I was afraid for my family’s well being, I have unfortunately taken the risk...don’t worry about me if I don’t post for the next few weeks as I will be lying in the hospital from a Komisarek forecheck.

In all seriousness this was fun to do and I would like to see more comments from you guys.

Jason Blake Interview (Courtesy LeafsTV)

An Excellent interview by LeafsTV talking with Jason Blake about his battle with cancer and how it effected his season a few season back. Also, how he overcame the adversities of two years ago and made a strong comeback last season.

Some Excellent answers from Jason Blake and it seems that he has great character contradicting the New York media that made him out to be a negative influence in the dressing room. The way he handled being benched is classy and something other players should learn from.