Look I'm Published!!

[chakhae1]

http://www.thesportster.com/hockey/t...leafs-history/

I hope to have more articles on this site in the near future but here's my first!! Hope you guys enjoy it :).

[30ranfordfan]

The Jeff Finger signing....... I still remember that one being a head scratcher. You gave him how much????


I wouldn't be as harsh towards the Leafs for some of the missed draft picks as you were: Passing on guys like Federov, Bure, Lidstrom..... yeah they did, but so did a lot of teams. Scouting European players was a very different game back then, and with Russians in particular: There was a great chance that the player would never actually come to North America.


I have to comment on Gord Stellick too. He's great on the radio (has been for a while) and he's pretty good at making Russ Cournall-for-John Kordic jokes himself. He was certainly under qualified for the job, but that's a reflection of how that team was being run. Ownership was cheap, and they hired someone internally that they could get for a low cost.


The Tom Kurvers trade is a great pick for #1 on your list. Dealing a first round pick for a decent (but not spectacular) dman is the kind of trade that teams have since stopped making. That the Leafs pick ended up as #2 overall makes it look even more boneheaded. Same reason I would have ranked the reaquisition of Wendel Clark higher on the list - moving out a pick that ended up being #4 overall, and turned into Roberto Luongo, makes that move look stupid.

I don't have anything against the philosophy in traded away 1st round picks. They're assets, and you move them to acquire assets you need more. The problem isn't in the moving of picks.... the problem is when the GM does a poor job assessing the talent of his team. Be it Smith trading what turned into a #2, Fletcher dealing a #4, and then Burke dealing what was later a #2...... I think it's a pretty safe bet that they don't make those deals if they know the pick is going to be that high, but they had such bad blinders on when looking at their rosters, and thought the teams they had were much better than they really were.

[creasecollector]

This article hurt my Leaf soul :) Congrats on getting published though. It's a pretty cool feeling!

[chakhae1]

Thanks for the feedback guys!! Before I started writing the article I thought the list would be longer but as it is I think the list is pretty complete. Most teams do make mistakes with draft picks since it is a luck of the draw but I think the Leaf's stand out b/c how terrible their history is and how few games their picks played in the NHL. Of course they have a couple of success stories such as drafting Felix Potvin in the second round and even getting Antropov with the 10th pick that year and no one knew who he was and he had a decent NHL career.

I put the Kurvers trade first b/c come on. Kurvers was just a guy with no fan fare at all and was traded for a lottery pick and like the Kessel trade that type of move should be limited to the elite superstars of the game. The contract signings as well. Every team makes those kinds of mistakes but what makes the Leaf's stand out is that they were known for them for most of the early 2000s and late 1990s. Signing players after one career season and having them flame out and contribute absolutely nothing. The only big money guy that worked out for a year was Mogilny who finally gave Sundin an all star calibre player to play with on his wing. Too bad Mogliny was at the end of his career and only lasted one year I believe b/c they were exciting to watch.

[doniceage]

Congrats on getting published!

Don