A small positive

[bryant08]

I can only think of one positive right now regarding this current situation so I might as well share it. The Kessel trade was a huge risk and we don't get to see how it pans for quite some time. But Burke has put himself on the hook with that first rounder to gift to Boston as the end of the year.

Now if we know one thing about Burke, it's that he won't gift a high pick to Boston without a fight. So ideally, I hope to see Burke desperately scrambling to try and improve this team in any which way to ensure he doesn't end up giving up a very good shot at the number 1 overall pick. Now the only issue is, what does he improve the team with? With few draft picks to throw into trade negotiations, he may start using some young pieces. What he trades I'm not sure, but what I'm trying to say is, Burke is a great General Manager, and so far he's talked the talk big time. Now it's his chance to show how great he is. A team starting in the crapper, with limited defensive ability, little to no offensive ability and weak goaltending. Let's see Burke work his magic because this team NEEDS to win hockey games. If they don't, Burke has to be held accountable. I'm excited amongst all the depressing hockey, because sorry Brian, you have no choice but to act. You can try internal roster moves like today, but if they continue to make no difference, you better start wheeling and dealing. I mean sure, new players need time to get adjusted to the system, but training camp + preseason + 6 regular season games is plenty of time, we're already 7% into the season.

It may not be time to panic yet, but Burkie soon enough won't have a choice but to start working those phones. Otherwise, Boston could be competing for a Stanley Cup and the first overall pick in the same year. I'm not going to comment on Ron Wilson, because the players aren't performing. If we have the right mix and Brian sincerely thinks that RW is the problem, he's still got to make that move regardless. Should be interesting to watch Leaf Nation over the last few weeks, because it's entirely possible we finish October last in the league with a few hard games coming up (Rangers, Ducks, etc).

[The Duke]

I rather not start sending young peices for older vets to squeek into the playoffs.
Dont want to take back extra "bad salary" either to hurt our possible 2010 offseason for UFA.

If we are still basement worthy come Mid-Late Novemeber .... I'd forward Kabrele to Boston for a package including our 2010 pick back.

[Cyrus]

LOL would that terrible if he started wheeling and dealing his youngster to get older/or vet just so he can "screw" boston out of a top pick....

This team needs some long term planning, it wasn't going to be good for a while, we need to have a top flight goalie who's young and develop from the farm, and build up, without that, your pretty much cooked, just ask Ottawa about goaltending, and they had all the talent in the world.

[bryant08]

Long-term planning? Burke made it clear with his offseason moves, the Kessel trade, and his comments he thinks this team is ready for the playoffs NOW and the future with Bozak, Stalberg, Kadri, Schenn, Kessel, etc. We just dealt 2 first round picks, if there's any other better way to help your team long-term than beefing up your prospect pool, I'd like to know it. If you think Toronto wasn't going to be good for a while, kudos to you for what seems like a nice call right now, but the management in Toronto strongly disagrees with you.

I'm not saying move our young pieces for aging vets to help us make the playoffs, but moves have to be made. It's not about screwing Boston out of a top pick, it's about what we have in our deck right now and whether that can get it done. If we continue to see this team devoid of talent, Burke made a large miscalculation and bought in too early with acquisitions like Komisarek, Beauchemin, Kessel (depending on how he does). If we plan on being good 3 years down the road, we're going to have pretty much the same team, just better developed together as a unit. Maybe a few solid FA acquisitions (of course FA age is 27), a few trades possibly. But I can quite honestly say with guys like Komisarek and Beauchemin, if they don't up their game, it's going to be tough to get good value for them on the trade market.

How do you plan on getting a young top flight goalie? If it isn't Gustavsson, I got news for you, the Leafs are going to have a near impossible task finding one in the 2nd-3rd rounds of the drafts. You can't start thinking of this team winning in another 5 years, that's just crazy. In terms of a Kaberle deal, this guy's value has dropped IMO. He's a fantastic player, no doubt about it, but I doubt Boston considers moving that pick for him (depending). Boston has their own cap problems, no need to add to it with Kaberle at 32 and no longer locked in for a few years (expires after next year).

I just think you guys are misinterpreting what I'm trying to say, all I'm saying is that Burke is forced to move. He can make a couple of moves to perhaps re-stock the draft pick pool, possibly get us some more mid-round picks and give young guys more playing time, admitting that this team simply isn't ready to win games now. Or he can make a few risky moves for some veterans to help improve the team now. With every loss that goes by, Burke has to be re-thinking his gameplan and thinking about his next move. My personal thinking is we need to win now, and Burke's personality just won't let this team lose like this and as a result Boston secure a high draft pick.

[Marmoset]

I just think you guys are misinterpreting what I'm trying to say, all I'm saying is that Burke is forced to move. He can make a couple of moves to perhaps re-stock the draft pick pool, possibly get us some more mid-round picks and give young guys more playing time, admitting that this team simply isn't ready to win games now. Or he can make a few risky moves for some veterans to help improve the team now. With every loss that goes by, Burke has to be re-thinking his gameplan and thinking about his next move. My personal thinking is we need to win now, and Burke's personality just won't let this team lose like this and as a result Boston secure a high draft pick.

I agree with this last part of your post. I think Burke has completely screwed up a golden opportunity for the Leafs, which was to rebuild properly for the first time in eons. Once he committed to trying to be a playoff team this year, he'd already made the first mistake, and the Kessel trade has compounded everything - that made it impossible to go back. This team CAN'T rebuild because that would mean Burke would have to admit to some huge mistakes and potentially even put his job at risk in a couple of years. Not to mention the fact that he traded away the two first rounders. For better or for worse, his only choice now is to try and put a winner together with what he has.

I'll add that I think any talk of the 'kids' not playing much of a role so far (Bozak, Hanson, Stahlberg, etc.) has a lot more to do with the media than Burke. I don't think Burke was counting on much from these guys yet. The improvement was supposed to come from the new defenseman, his new goons, and improvement from some guys already here such as Schenn and Grabovski. Also the Monster - I believe Burke's plan has always been to have Gustavsson starting for the Leafs sooner rather than later. Toskala is just a goalie he happens to be stuck with.

[bryant08]

This article echoes my thoughts:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/To ... 1-sun.html

[The Duke]

This "positive" is more of a negative to me.

With pressure now being put on Burke to make a trade to "get better now", what assets do we have to trade? .... Prospects? Euro Youth? More picks? Take on (bad) long contracts?

I'm certainly not a fan of that direction again....

Swallow your pride and eat the lost pick to Boston.

Been saying this for a while, I think its best to move Kabrele (Vet who is in demand). Theres no point in having him on this roster wasting a year (50% of his remaining contract) with the Leafs as a non-playoff team this season.

[bryant08]

Burke's cliche response:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/b ... le1324176/

[Dr Positivity]

What moves do you propose we make, if we presume trading youth for vets is off the table, which it better well should be. If you think we can trade Kaberle and get better at the same time... sorry, but youre severly misguided. Kaberle will get us a mid round 1st and another player, at best. Presuming we go young with the return, we will almost surely be a worse team after that deal.

Should we trade Beauch and Komisarek if they continue to suck... sure, but with their big contracts wed probably get next to nothing in return, the move would be more of a dump

Believe it or not, Im not too concerned about whether Boston gets the 1st pick or the 15th pick this year. Sure itll look bad if they end up with the 1st overall, but at the end of the day it will have no effect on our team. The pick is GONE... what Boston ends up with has no effect on us, it makes our division harder, but thats it. Theres no point crying if they end up with the 1st, we already made our decision and theres no changing it now. We certainly shouldnt sacrifice our future just to save face

What I am concerned about is this team losing the good vibes they had last year... were a sack of losers right now. Schenn has been very disappointing. Beauch and Komi look like flops. So were stuck in a less enviable position than I thought and its going to be a while longer before we can makes the playoffs and be good. But well see how things go first...

Btw... whats up with us having 1 game over a 2 week span. Is it a Thanksgiving thing or just the ACC being full. Maybe itll give this team room to gel... and we can be like Lost season 3 after the first 6 episodes in October sucked then it went away until February and had its best stretch ever... lol

[Dr Positivity]

By the way... Burke did NOT sacrifice rebuilding in the Kessel trade. I repeat... Burke DID NOT SACRIFICE REBUILDING BY GETTING KESSEL.

The kid is 21. Hes now our best young player and by far our best young forward. Burke decided the chances of those two picks being as good as Kessel wasnt enough... some of you people are acting like we gave 2 firsts for a 28 year old

[_venom_]

By the way... Burke did NOT sacrifice rebuilding in the Kessel trade. I repeat... Burke DID NOT SACRIFICE REBUILDING BY GETTING KESSEL.

The kid is 21. Hes now our best young player and by far our best young forward. Burke decided the chances of those two picks being as good as Kessel wasnt enough... some of you people are acting like we gave 2 firsts for a 28 year old

+infinity

I honestly can't believe how many people are so against the Kessel trade. Kessel is not a player with 1 or 2 good years left, he could be a 40 goal scorer for 10 years. The chances that either of those 1st rders amount to anything better than Kessel is minimal.

[bryant08]

Burke certainly didn't sacrifice rebuilding, but those two picks have the value of the unknown. On the flip side, let's not act like we gave up little to nothing in this deal, we definitely gave up 2 top 20 1st rounders, and a top 50 overall pick as well. The chance that those individual first rounders amount to something better to Kessel might be small, but let's say those picks end up being something like this:

10th overall pick in 2010
40th overall pick in 2010
15th overall pick in 2011

There are 3 legitimate picks to grab players on rookie scale contracts and of high calibre. We can't judge this deal for a while, Kessel needs to show what he's got and the picks have to be made/players have to develop. I'm not personally jumping on either side of that issue at the moment, but regardless, let's see what's to come in the immediate future for the Leafs.

[Marmoset]

By the way... Burke did NOT sacrifice rebuilding in the Kessel trade. I repeat... Burke DID NOT SACRIFICE REBUILDING BY GETTING KESSEL.

The kid is 21. Hes now our best young player and by far our best young forward. Burke decided the chances of those two picks being as good as Kessel wasnt enough... some of you people are acting like we gave 2 firsts for a 28 year old

He absolutely DID sacrifice part of our rebuilding process for Kessel. Kessel helps now, those 3 picks don't. It's definitely not the same as getting a veteran for those picks, but it's not the same as trading Kaberle, White and a 2nd either (not saying Boston would ever take that for Kessel, just making a point).

The vast majority of NHL teams would never sacrifice two 1st round picks and a 2nd for just about anyone, especially when at least one of those picks is likely to be high. Only two teams traded their 2009 first rounders before the draft, and they were Calgary and San Jose, two locks to be in the playoffs.

I can only assume that Burke had higher expectations for this team than I ever did before the season, and if he misjudged the ability of the team that doesn't reflect well on him either. Really, it's all about how good Kulemin, Stalberg, Bozak, etc. are. If you think some of these guys are really good prospects and the Leafs have some depth, being more aggressive might make sense. If you think most of these guys are just decent prospects, then the Leafs need the depth and talent those draft picks would bring.

[The-Insider]

http://hockey.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ar ... ebut_soon/

I hope they're not rushing him back here. They must be under a lot of pressure to get him going and for him to start producing.

[The Duke]

The pick is gone nothing we can do about it now.

Trade Kabrele for youth/picks midway into the season if we are still (and likely) in the gutter.

Dont sacrifice more future to try and save face for this season

[Dr Positivity]

By the way... Burke did NOT sacrifice rebuilding in the Kessel trade. I repeat... Burke DID NOT SACRIFICE REBUILDING BY GETTING KESSEL.

The kid is 21. Hes now our best young player and by far our best young forward. Burke decided the chances of those two picks being as good as Kessel wasnt enough... some of you people are acting like we gave 2 firsts for a 28 year old

He absolutely DID sacrifice part of our rebuilding process for Kessel. Kessel helps now, those 3 picks don't. It's definitely not the same as getting a veteran for those picks, but it's not the same as trading Kaberle, White and a 2nd either (not saying Boston would ever take that for Kessel, just making a point).

The vast majority of NHL teams would never sacrifice two 1st round picks and a 2nd for just about anyone, especially when at least one of those picks is likely to be high. Only two teams traded their 2009 first rounders before the draft, and they were Calgary and San Jose, two locks to be in the playoffs.

I can only assume that Burke had higher expectations for this team than I ever did before the season, and if he misjudged the ability of the team that doesn't reflect well on him either. Really, it's all about how good Kulemin, Stalberg, Bozak, etc. are. If you think some of these guys are really good prospects and the Leafs have some depth, being more aggressive might make sense. If you think most of these guys are just decent prospects, then the Leafs need the depth and talent those draft picks would bring.

The thing is... rebuilding is not just from draft picks. There was a good article in the Leafs annual mag this year talking about how the Bruins rebuilt from 06ish when they sucked to now and comparing it to us. They drafted Kessell and Lucic, but everything else was a result of shrewd GMing that wasnt reliant on tanking and stockpiling picks like the Kings, Coyotes, etc. have done for eons. It took much longer for Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh etc. to rebuild than it took Boston. And furthermore they started in the pre salary cap era where you could more easily unload all your heavy contracts at once and actually get a return for them, while rolling out a true young tanking team. Whereas we were saddled with not only bad deals like McCabe and Blake, but those NTCs as well. We got virtually nothing for all the vets we had at the end of the JFJ era... this was not true of the tanking Caps pre salary cap

[Marmoset]

The thing is... rebuilding is not just from draft picks. There was a good article in the Leafs annual mag this year talking about how the Bruins rebuilt from 06ish when they sucked to now and comparing it to us. They drafted Kessell and Lucic, but everything else was a result of shrewd GMing that wasnt reliant on tanking and stockpiling picks like the Kings, Coyotes, etc. have done for eons. It took much longer for Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh etc. to rebuild than it took Boston. And furthermore they started in the pre salary cap era where you could more easily unload all your heavy contracts at once and actually get a return for them, while rolling out a true young tanking team. Whereas we were saddled with not only bad deals like McCabe and Blake, but those NTCs as well. We got virtually nothing for all the vets we had at the end of the JFJ era... this was not true of the tanking Caps pre salary cap

I totally agree that rebuilding isn't just draft picks - but I think draft picks are the single most significant part of it. I feel like you've made my argument for me in this post about why they need those draft picks so badly. Yes, they got stuck with terrible contracts and NTCs, yes it's harder to trade those contracts now. So it's much harder to get picks and prospects from someone else, and harder to acquire good players by trade the way Boston acquired many of their guys. Now the Leafs have traded away potentially three good prospects, possibly elite if this ends up being top 5. Because of their situation I feel they should have been more patient. What they've done is thrown all of their eggs into the Kessel basket. I think the risk was unnecessary at this stage of rebuilding. In a year, probably two it would have made a lot more sense, and carried far less risk than it does now.

[Dr Positivity]

Well look at things this way... Kessel is worth at least this years pick, even if its top 3 or 5. This years pick plus a 2nd for Kessel I would still do knowing how bad we are now... theres no Crosby or Ovechkin prospect in this draft so Im not concerned over giving up a generational player for Kessell.

So really we lost next years pick as a part of this endeavour. Does that hurt... Sure. But its not the apocalypse of Leafs nation. And theres no chance now of busting on both picks

[The Duke]

We gave TOP dollar to Kessel AND also lost 3 draft picks....
How much goals you think Kessel will score this year? ... 25-28 is what im thinking.

I'm not a fan of saying Kessel is still worth at least years pick, even if its top 3.
Thats NOT how you evaluate a trade, in a box like that, you evaluate it based on possible options you had likely available to you at the time. These are the options Burke had 1 season into the future....

Whats better?

This coming 2010 offseason:

Option A
Top 3 pick + sign 1 big UFA + experience for Prospects in 2009 + option to trade 2011/2012 picks in a "Kessel like aquistion" .... (the team should be playoff worthy and picks will be lower)

or

Option B
Top 3 pick + sign 2 big UFA (with extra cap space) + experience for Prospects in 2009 + keep our picks

or

Option C
Top 3 pick + sign 1 big UFA (since it will be hard to get 2 big UFA) + keep extra cap space + experience for Prospects in 2009 + keep our picks

or

Option D
Kessel + sign 1 big UFA + experience for Prospects in 2009 + (lose top 3 2010 pick + 2011 pick)

Any way you put it... Burke Choose Option D, which in my opinion, is worse then A or B or C

[Dr Positivity]

There's a couple issues with your layout though.

First of all, part of Burke's job is to make this team money and to build a winning culture. He has stated any year we don't make the playoffs is a failure. None of these things are accomplished with the biggest "tank" plan, which would've been to keep both our picks and not sign any free agents, then get a bottom 3 pick and go on our way more next year.

Secondly there is no saying a Kessel like deal would be available next summer. Remember Kessel had told the Bruins he wanted to sign somewhere else, which lowered his value. And clearly he chose the Leafs to do it with.

If we were a bottom 3 team this year... getting 2 major UFAs wouldn't help us much because we'd still be 3-4 years away from doing anything with the difference in readyness between Kessel and the new guy. Remember UFAs are old. Young RFAs like Kessel who can fit into our youth core cost a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to pry away

On a further note... UFAs are more attracted to better teams. Who do you think Kovalchuk would be more likely to sign with... a Leafs team who just made a 6th seed, or a Leafs team who tanked their way to a top 3 pick?

Either way the answer is the same... Burke is an anti tank GM... he wants to make the playoffs as fast as he can. Fans are always clamouring for rebuilding and tanking for 5 years straight... but something tells me if we didn't make the playoffs until 2015 people wouldn't be around much to exclaim YES!!! ... people have short patience. This team has already missed the playoffs for 4 years... it doesn't need to run that streak to 10 so we can hope to get the next Ovechkin

We're on the right path... Schenn, Kadri, Kessel are excellent core pieces... Burke and Wilson are great GMs... we have a lot of capspace next year... and this team will figure it out, once they slow down the game and start playing more physical. So I would just have patience... I like where the Leafs are going... even if they lost a draft pick in the process