Toronto Maple Leafs

Contrarian Viewpoints

Contrarian

–noun

a person who takes an opposing view, esp. one who rejects the majority opinion, as in economic matters.

I’m not trying to bash my ideas about the draft down everyone’s throat with this blog.  I have never stated anywhere on this site that I think drafting in the top 5 would be a bad idea for the Leafs.  What I have said repeatedly, is that drafting in the top 5 does not guarantee the Leafs success.  I have also said that there will be copious opportunities to draft game-breaking players at this year’s draft, and thus it is not an absolute requirement that the Leafs select in the top 5 to obtain said game breaking players.

The more salient point I have tried to make on this blog numerous times is that the QUANTITY of picks will increase their chances of cultivating a GROUP of talented skill players who can develop together down the line.  I also strongly feel that players taken outside of the top 3 picks overall, tend to typically be slightly less “expensive” out of the gate.  In summary, I feel tanking for Tavares is an idiotic endeavour that despite repeated calls from various fans will never be discussed seriously by the team anyway, and is thus pointless non-starter when it comes to “plans” for rebuilding the team.

In my past analyses of top flight teams, I have been accused of arbitrarily drawing the line between successful franchises and unsuccessful.  The irony in that assertion is that I have typically analysed teams that OTHER people have described as exemplary for the Leafs to imitate.  Thus, towards that end, I will now throw some other “hats” in the proverbial ring, just to prove, AGAIN, that the Leafs striving for first overall picks will not guarantee success in any way shape or form.  Cultivating a positive team environment, that is built on a foundation of structured play, solid talent development, coaching, scouting, and astute management of assets is the only way this team turns things around… long term OR short term.

Atlanta Thrashers

I sincerely doubt that anyone, anywhere would classify the Thrashers as a succesful NHL franchise.  This is despite the fact that they have drafted the following “game breaking” players in their tenure in the NHL:

Dany Heatley - 1st round, 2nd overall, 2000 entry draft

Ilya Kovalchuk - 1st round, 1st overall, 2001 entry draft

Kari Lehtonen - 1st round, 2nd overall, 2002 entry draft

Braydon Coburn - 1st round, 8th overall, 2003 entry draft

Bryan Little - 1st round, 12th overall, 2006 entry draft

Zach Bagosian - 1st round, 3rd overall, 2008 entry draft

Now… why has Atlanta failed to go anywhere in the NHL?  Well, the funny thing is, when you draft 89 players over the past 9 drafts, and you only manage to develop 22 NHLers out of that group, you are FAILING as a franchise.  To add insult to injury, I should point out that the median number of games played by players drafted after the 1st round by the Thrashers, who actually MADE the NHL is 75.   That’s over the past 9 YEARS.  Anyone can pick good players first or second overall.  Most teams will luck out with the occasional decent talent later on in the first round.  But to continuously draft poorly in the later rounds is a sign of a completely adrift scouting staff and management group.  The Atlanta Thrashers frankly suck.

Columbus Blue Jackets

They selected Rick Nash first overall in 2002, but they haven’t managed to surround him with enough talent to ever make the playoffs.  That’s over the course of 9 years now.  They took Ratislav Klesla in the first round, 4th overall, in 2000, and he’s developed into a decent D man, but he’s not a franchise cornerstone defender.  Pascal Leclaire was drafted 8th overall in 2001, but he’s been the subject of trade rumours for a while (with the Leafs even), and has had serious injury concerns throughout his career.

Nikolai Zherdev was supposed to bring that dynamic offensive skill set required to feed off of Nash and send the team to the post season.  The Blue Jackets drafted him 4th overall in 2003.  He provided offense.  He played reasonably well.  He didn’t stick around, and now he’s playing for the Rangers.

They drafted winger Alexandre Picard 8th overall in 2004, and he’s played 54 games in the NHL without registering a goal, and only one assist.  Not really making much difference at this point.

Gilbert Brule and Derrick Brassard have both turned out to be decent selections at 6th overall in 2005 and 2006 respectively.  They might yet develop soundly.  Similarly, 7th overall 2007 pick Jakub Voracek is very highly touted, as is 6th overall pick from the 2008 draft, Nikita Filatov, who captained the Russian squad at this past year’s World Junior Championship.

Generally speaking, Columbus IS improving, but they’ve brought in a top coach in Ken Hitchcock which is assisting their player development, and they tossed aside GM Doug MacLean.  They’ve also started playing more of a concrete defensive system, which is helping their goalies and D men out quite a bit.  They need to add a few pieces before they can compete, but the draft hasn’t been the motherlode many teams would hope it could be.

The Blue Jackets are NOT what the Leafs are hoping to become… but for some reason people seem to deny the possibility that they might head in that direction if they consistently “tank”, in the hopes of becoming competitive.

Maple Leafs

Suffice it to say, I don’t think adding Tavares would hinder the rebuild of the Leafs.  I also don’t think he would save everything with his presence.  A lot more talent will be needed to improve the club, and it needs to be the RIGHT talent.  Teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning have tried to get back to the top by bringing in a slew of new forwards, many of whom may not mesh with any sort of franchise vision.  Others, like St. Louis, seem to do a decent job of scouting and development, but it hasn’t translated into wins since they lost Pronger and MacInnis on the back-end.

It has been said that “The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there’s gold in letting go of them.” Perhaps Leafs Nation would do well to stop assuming that one player on draft day will cure the ills that ail them.

This is bound to be a long drawn out process, and 4 or 5 years from now, many draft picks down the line, we will hopefully be looking on a solid franchise.  If the team follows through on a consistent plan, or mould, it will be more likely to come to fruition.