Tomas Kaberle

Tomas Kaberle joined the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1998. He arrived as an unheralded and largely unknown 20 year old prospect drafted in the 8th round, 206th overall.

It was assumed he would start the year in the minors, but he skated his way onto that Pat Quinn led team and was a mainstay on the Leafs blue line for 13 years. (So much for Pat Quinn not playing or developing youngsters).

The kid with the rosy cheeks could skate. I’ve been watching the Leafs for nearly 35 years and there haven’t been many defencemen that could glide through the neutral zone and gain the blue line with the efficiency or apparent ease of Kaberle. Salming for sure, Randy Carlysle was another, but you’d only need one hand to count them all.

Kaberle’s detractors, and there are more than a few, didn’t like his defensive zone coverage or his lack of physical play. Fair enough, I suppose. Lucian Freud is likely a lousy singer and I guess Philip Roth can’t dance. Besides, the Leafs franchise is not alone in overvaluing the physical aspects of the game.

But Kaberle’s offensive contributions to the club cannot be denied. He sits in pretty elite company with the Leafs: fifth in assists, second in points by a defenceman and 11th in points overall (just 17 points back of Rick Vaive). Impressive numbers to be sure.

In the end, I am saddened by Kaberle’s departure. Like so many Leaf greats before him I fear he will not be judged by the lens of his accomplishments or how he performed on the ice, but by the shortcomings of his team during his tenure. It’s unfortunate that the failures of management, especially their inability to surround players like Kaberle with the appropriate pieces to win, will colour how many evaluate his career as a Leaf. I do hope time corrects that viewpoint as it has for Sittler, Salming and Sundin.

After 13 years, 878 games, four all-star appearances, a gold and silver World Championship medal and an Olympic Bronze Tomas Kaberle departs the Leafs for the Boston Bruins.

I wish him nothing but success in the future and look forward to his return to the ACC where I hope he will be acknowledged, if not for his wonderful contributions to the Toronto Maple Leafs, for waiving his No Trade Clause and ensuring that this club has yet more prospects and more hope for the future.

Road to Nowhere: Leafs Trade Versteeg

The Toronto Maple Leafs traded 24 year old Kris Versteeg to the Philadelphia Flyers for a 1st and a 3rd round draft pick in 2011.

I don’t like the deal for two simple reasons:

1. The Flyers get the known quantity and the Leafs presume all the risk (the party that takes on the risk should get more of the reward); and
2. It’s highly unlikely that the Leafs will be able to find a player of Versteeg’s ability with the Flyers’ pick.

The Flyers’ pick will likely fall in the 25 to 30 range in the first round of the NHL draft.

I looked at every player drafted 25th to 30th from 1994 to 2009 to see how they compare to a player like Versteeg. A guy who in just his fourth year in the NHL already has two 20 goal seasons and is on pace for a third. His boxcars: 223GP 58G 78A 136pts | 0.26GPG 0.35APG 0.61PtsPG.

Over those 15 16 drafts, 43 forwards have been drafted. Of those 43 forwards:
• Nine (20%) have never played a single NHL game;
• Seven (16%) have scored 58 or more career NHL goals;
• Six (14%) have averaged 0.60 points per game, or better;
• Five (10%) have averaged 0.26 goals per game, or better;

Of the 36 defencemen drafted in the 25 to 30 spot since 1994:
• Thirteen (36%) have never played a single NHL game;
• Twenty-four (66%) have not played in 80 games in their NHL career;

I realize these stats are skewed somewhat as players drafted 2007 to 2009 haven’t had much opportunity to make their mark. But looking at the 78 players taken from 1994 to 2006, the picture doesn’t change much.

In short, it doesn’t look like the Leafs are going to pluck a player with Versteeg’s ability out of that draft spot. Sure, it could happen, but why roll the dice?

The Leafs also got some cap space out of the deal, but Burke hasn’t exactly wowed me with his UFA overspends on Komisarek, Ledba, Orr and Armstrong. And it’s not like 20 goal wingers are available on the free agent market for $3M or less. Also of note, this year’s crop of UFAs is the opposite of good.

Summing up: the Leafs traded a salary-controlled 24 year old who’s consistently scored 20+ goals throughout his career for a draft pick that’s unlikely to turn into a consistent 20 goal scorer and the opportunity to overspend on a thin and overpriced UFA market.

Maybe there's another component yet to come, but as it stands I don’t like this deal.

HNIC: Career Back-up Makes Bad

Anyone who wanders into Major League Baseball can't help but notice the stark contrast between the field of play and the uneasy space just off it, where the executives and the scouts make their livings. The game itself is a ruthless competition. Unless you're very good, you don't survive in it. But in the space just off the field of play there really is no level of incompetence that won't be tolerated.
- Michael Lewis

The late Roone Arledge transformed the way television covered sport.

Those beautiful shots of the host city and its skyline that open each broadcast? His wife’s idea. Arledge introduced it after going to San Francisco to see a Major League Baseball game.

Multiple cameras and, amazingly, cameras that move? Arledge.

The instant replay? Arledge.

Iso cams? Arledge.

Slow motion? Arledge again.

Monday Night Football? The dude created it.

The only staple of modern sports coverage Arledge didn’t invent, and the one that’s become the most essential part of my nightly sports viewing? The mute button.

I get that the Leafs aren’t a particularly good hockey team. I watch them struggle night in, night out. I can read the standings, a box score, and you don’t need to go into the agate type to do a quick calculation of their goal differential (I’ll save you the time: it’s not good).

I also know that there are huge swaths of this country that takes great delight in the Leafs struggles, a feeling normally described as Schadenfreude but often seems more akin to pulling the wings off a fly.

But Saturday night’s Leafs Habs game may have hit new lows in terms of tone and content. Garry Galley and Glenn Healy combined for a rare daily double of snark and stupidity.

Healy was a career back-up goalie who put up a .887 save percentage. He received a Stanley Cup ring for opening the bench door on the 1994 New York Rangers, which is the equivalent of claiming part of a Pulitzer for working on the copy desk. The main exception to that analogy being, the kid working the copy desk likely wouldn’t run his mouth as much about his role in the big win.

I recall Garry Galley being a marginal player on a lot of teams (Boston and Philly in the mid to late 80s). I had no idea he was a broadcaster and I wish it were still so. I’m not sure what team he normally covers but I hope he returns to them as soon as possible.

This isn’t a complaint because the Leafs lost. The Habs were hands-down the better club and were full marks for the win. They deserved the two points and they seized them.

I also - as anyone who has ever read this blog, listened to one of the PPP podcasts, or met me in person knows – have no problem with criticizing the Leafs. And, let’s face it, there is much to criticize.

What I do have a problem with is irrational or unfounded criticism and Saturday night’s broadcast was replete with it.

Two quick examples:

Countless times Galley and Healy spoke about Thomas Kaberle’s propensity to never shoot the puck. A quick look at NHL.com shows that Kaberle’s actually 31st in the league among defencemen in shots. In half an NHL season Kaberle has just 13 less shots than James Wisniewski who, according to Galley and Healy, is a revelation on Montreal’s defence.

Viewers were also told that Montreal hasn’t given Toronto “a sniff” this whole season. That’s absolutely true if you ignore that Toronto beat Montreal 3-2 on October 7 and 3-1 on December 11th and the season series is actually 2-2-0.

On and on it went, the snark coming so thick from Healy it was as if he’d ingested an entire strata of comments from TSN or HFBoards and the toxins and stupidity were desperately trying to purge themselves from his body.

The mute button is an adequate response for dealing with Nick Kypreos’ history of head injuries, Doug Maclean’s rampant managerial incompetence, Healy’s chronic unfunny snark and the regularly scheduled rantings of Pierre Maguire. The downside is, I don’t get to actually hear the game and its wonderful sounds.

The crowd at the Bell Centre has to be the best in hockey. They are passionate, engaged, and they clearly “get” the game. That’s what I want to hear when I watch hockey and that’s what the game lacks when I have to keep hitting mute.

I’ve often said that I would be willing to pay extra for the CBC or TSN, or Sportsnet (Home of the StupidTM) to offer a digital package with game only sounds. I would have paid a pretty premium last night.

In a country full of journalism schools and a passion for hockey it’s shocking how few “outsiders” make it on air. Many of the sideline guys and panelists are outstanding, but when it comes to colour guys, the metric for competence seems to start and end at former player.

The Leafs, love them or hate them, draw the largest ratings in the country. They play in the most populous centre among the largest corporations in the land. They are a terrible hockey team that, oddly, is much beloved. National broadcasters, you would think, might want to court this massive fan base. Maybe finding one or two on-air personalities that aren’t so openly hostile, or ill-informed, would be a good start.

Might be the sort of thing an innovator like Roone Arledge would do.

**addendum**

Glenn Healy added this gem to the Saturday night broadcast: "I played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and you don’t get shutout on Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada.”

That's a great insight from Healy, especially in light of his performance with the Leafs against the New York Islanders on Saturday, October 4, 1997.

Yeah, it was a 3-0 shutout loss for the Leafs with Healy between the pipes.

Leafs, Lupul and Ideas That Won't Die

Three quick thoughts about the Toronto Maple Leafs acquiring Joffrey Lupul:

1. Burke's trades continue to come as complete surprises;
2. The key to the trade might just be the prospect, not the player; and
3. The Leafs take on more salary, cap and term than they ship out.

The first is noteworthy only in that for a long time the ACC/MLSE was leakier than a goaltending tandem of Andrew Raycroft and Vesa Toskala.

To the second point, this deal has a lot of similarities with the Phaneuf trade.

The Leafs got a player with a bloated contract that isn't playing remotely close to his pay grade and whose arrows are pointing the wrong way. The Leafs took on additional salary, a bigger cap hit, and a longer term but by doing so they were able to add another promising prospect, Jake Gardiner, to their system. This, it seems, is the cost of replenishing the talent pool.

Which brings me to my third point...

The financial clout of MLSE may actually be starting to pay off; however, not quite in the way many had expected or predicted.

To date, teams have preferred parking their horrible contracts in the AHL or transferring them to the KHL rather than burning additional assets such as picks and prospects in order to entice another team to take them. (The idea of picks or prospects being exchanged for bad contracts is the zombie of NHL trade coverage. No matter how often it's knocked down and left for dead it just keeps coming crawling back. And like many of the NHL talking heads that raise the issue, it's in desperate need of brains.) Given the amount of air time, column space and page views the trade deadline will generate, I am certain that this oft discussed scenario, which remains rarer than a quiet and reflective moment from Pierre Maguire, will be repeatedly raised and debated before the NHL trade deadline day comes to a merciful close.

But back to the trade...

In short:

• Lupul may be a top six player on the Leafs but this is more a testament of just how thin the Leafs top six is, than it is an indication of Lupul's so-called talent;
• I doubt Lupul pushes the 25 goal mark as many have suggested. He's only crested that mark twice in 6.5 seasons and it's rare for an oft-injured 28 year old to suddenly find a scoring touch;
• The Leafs' single biggest need remains finding a quality centre;
• The Leafs will need to fill-in the 24 minutes a night Beauchemin often played (could mean more Komisarek);
• The Leafs get an opportunity to see what they have in Aulie (not a bad thing, although with rookies, come rookie mistakes);
• The deal crates a long-term issue on D - with Kaberle's departure all but certain (either at the deadline or as a UFA), the Leafs are going to be down two veteran, minute eating d-men;
• The Leafs get younger by adding another prospect to their system; and
• By the time the Leafs are actually a competitive club playing meaningful post-season games, Gardiner could be an important part of this club. Lupul will likely be little more than an entry in the Leafs annual media guide.

Burke has to get the Leafs out of a pretty big hole. Part of that process will come from assembling a group of picks, prospects and young players that can make a meaningful, collective, contribution down the road. Another part of that process will come from acquiring transitional players who can push the John Mitchells and Freddie Sjostroms down the depth chart.

Looking at today's trade, it's pretty clear to me where each of the newly acquired players fits into this ongoing process. And it appears eating $10M of Joffrey Lupul's salary is the cost of making the Leafs that much more competitive and, perhaps, getting them that much further out of a very deep hole.