Lamoriello, Leafs preaching patience
Prospects must crawl, walk before they run
Sometimes, general managers just cannot help themselves.
You see it every year at the trade deadline, when prospects and draft picks are shipped out for rental players that never pan out. You see it on the first day of free agency, when star money is spent on average players. And you see it in training camp, when a pimply-faced teenager makes a roster he has no business being on.
Some call these mistakes. Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Lou Lamoriello calls them exceptions to the rule. And he, too, has made them in the past.
In 2011, the then-New Jersey Devils GM drafted Adam Larsson with the fourth-overall pick and then fast-tracked him to the NHL. It was hardly a mistake. As an 18-year-old, the youngest Devils defenceman since Scott Niedermayer, Larsson averaged more than 20 minutes. But he only appeared in five playoff games for a team that advanced to the Stanley Cup final and spent large parts of the next two years in the minors.
Neither Lamoriello nor the Devils, who re-signed Larsson to a six-year, US$25-million contract in July, regret the decision. At the same time, those thinking fourth-overall pick Mitch Marner might be headed on a similar course with the Leafs, think again.
“When you look at Adam Larsson, you have to look at prior to his draft,” said Lamoriello. “He played two years of pro hockey in Sweden. Left home and played in the Swedish Elite League for two full years. That was a little different than a player playing in junior. So there are unique situations.”
Lamoriello is not ready to rule out that Marner, who scored 126 points in 63 games in the Ontario Hockey League this season, could be another unique situation. “If the exception takes place, believe me it’s there,” he said. But heading into this weekend’s Rookie Tournament in London, Ont., which features prospects from the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins, the Leafs GM is hoping for a little normalcy.
In other words, get a picture while you can of Marner in a Leafs jersey. You probably won’t see it anytime soon. And that probably goes for William Nylander (eighth overall, 2014), Kasperi Kapanen (22nd, 2014) and many of the organization’s other bluechip prospects.
Lamoriello is not trying to squash any dreams. But with the Leafs in a rebuilding mode — The Hockey News picked Toronto to finish last in the Atlantic Division — the organization is trying to take a longrange view to developing. It began last year, when the team refused to call up minorleague standouts Nylander (32 points in 37 games) and Connor Brown (61 points in 76 games) for a single NHL game even at the end of the year. No one expects that philosophy to change this year with Marner or Kapanen or anyone else.
“It ’s our responsibility to put the players we’re developing in situations that they can succeed in,” Lamoriello said. “The old proverb of ‘you have to walk before you run’ — and in other words, ‘you have to crawl before you walk’ — we have to look at that. And not in a negative way, but in a positive way, because you’re trying to build a foundation for the future.
“You never lose sight of today, but right now we’re looking at the big picture.”
The big picture suggests that the Leafs have the deepest pool of top-end prospects in the history of the organization. ESPN recently ranked the organization second — they were 17th a year ago — by prospect strength. In a few years, it is not a stretch to suggest that Marner and Nylander could be playing together on the top line, with Kapanen, Brown, Brendan Leipsic and Frederik Gauthier pencilled in amongst the top-9.
“The word potential, which I hate, as far as abilities is there,” said Lamoriello.
Management purposefully signed established NHLers
The word potential, which I hate, as far as abilities is there
like Shawn Matthias, P-A Parenteau and Daniel Winnik, as well as invited Brad Boyes, Devin Setoguchi and Curtis Glencross to training camp on tryouts, to make sure roster spots would not be given out to its youngsters.
As Lamoriello joked, the big reason why the star-studded 2003 draft, which produced Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Suter and many other future Hall of Fame players, was so good was not necessarily because of the rich talent pool. But rather, it was because a lockout that cancelled the season the following year made playing in the NHL impossible.
“You can go down that whole draft that was forced to play in the American League,” said Lamoriello, who drafted Zach Parise with the 17 thover-all pick that year. “A situation forced us to develop players the way we should.”