REASON TO BELIEVE?
Still building, this has become Burke’s team
Sure, the Leafs have re-signed Nikolai Kulemin but do they have enough to win?
An interesting piece of trivia was hidden in the middle of the news release announcing that Nikolai Kulemin had avoided salary arbitration and re-signed a twoyear contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday.
It turns out the 26-year-old is now the team’s active leader in games played with 303.
The previous leader had been Luke Schenn, who appeared in 310 games before he was traded last month. Schenn had replaced Tomas Kaberle, who spent 878 games in a Leafs uniform before also being traded.
What does this mean? Well, there appears to be less turnover working at a Tim Hortons than playing for the Leafs. It also means that, more and more, this has become general manager Brian Burke’s team. Since being hired in November 2008, he has gutted the roster and coaching staff — only Kulemin andMikhail Grabovski were here when Burke arrived — and now has his fingerprints over 90% of what you see.
So while he might have inherited a mess, this has officially become his mess.
We call it a mess because if you base it purely on performance, that is what it looks like. Burke’s Leafs have missed the playoffs for the last four seasons, finishing 24th, 29th, 22nd and 26th overall, respectively. There might be baby steps occurring here and there but, aside from Jake Gardiner being named to the all-rookie team and a deep playoff run by the Leafs’ minor-league affiliate, there is not much in the way of evidence.
Which brings us to the oftasked question: Will the Leafs be a playoff team next season? Will they even be better than they were in 2011-12?
“If this is the roster as it stands, we think we can be competitive,” said Dave Nonis, the Leafs’ director of hockey operations who acts as Burke’s right-hand man.
This does not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement to start printing playoff tickets. Then again, it should not be all that surprising, considering what has happened — or has not happened — in Toronto this summer.
The Leafs acquired bud- ding top-six forward James van Riemsdyk from Philadelphia in exchange for Schenn and signed depth centre Jay McClement. But it is the rumoured deals — for goaltenders Roberto Luongo of Vancouver or Jonathan Bernier of Los Angeles — that most are holding out hope for, because it could change “competitive” to “a contender.”
As of today, neither seems much of a possibility. That does not mean it will not happen. It is only July and management is quite aware that others — the Hurricanes, Lightning, even the Islanders — are getting better while the Leafs still have holes in the lineup. But Toronto is just as concerned about not making the same knee-jerk reactionary moves — signing Tim Connolly after losing out on Brad Richards — that got the team in trouble in the past.
“Again, every year it’s sort of the same question: are you happy with it?” Nonis said of the current roster. “If you can improve, you’re going to do it, but you’re not going to make changes just to make one. There has to be a player that’s going to make us better longterm. It can’t be just a short spike that they can’t keep up.”
For now, the Leafs are hoping that Matt Frattin, Nazem Kadri, Joe Colborne and other prospects will be able to step up and make just as much of an impact as a trade or free-agent signing would. The team is also counting on van Riemsdyk to step into the No. 1 centre spot and on Kulemin, who went from scoring 30 goals in 2009-10 to seven last season, to find his offensive touch.
Once again, they will ask fans for patience and understanding — a request that is becoming more and more difficult after years and years of disappointment.
“There are younger players that you want to develop into that core group of players,” said Nonis. “We’re not there yet.”
Had the Leafs made the playoffs and bowed out in the first round, selling hope might have been a little easier. But the way last season ended, with the team fantastically falling from as high as seventh in the East in February to 13th in March, changed the perception. Instead of a team appearing to make progress, it seemed dysfunctional.
The reality is that there is a lot that Nonis still likes about this group. At the same time, he acknowledges that fans will have to wait on Gardiner, van Riemsdyk and some of the recent draft picks from this year and last year to develop before the Leafs can take that big step and become championship contenders.
And yet, if the Leafs do not make a baby step and become a playoff team next season, it will not be a player or a coach who gets moved.