Cujo: I never should have left the Leafs
Goalie’s stock has plummeted since leaving Toronto and he hopes to rise from the ashes in Arizona desert
to pick up an option for $6 million for this season, leaving him going into this season making 11 per cent of his 2003- 04 salary.
Belfour, meanwhile, is still earning $ 4.6 million with the Leafs despite having failed to get the Leafs past the second round of the post- season.
Joseph, one of the game’s classiest gentlemen, admits the shocking drop in income has been a blow to his pride.
“ But really, once you go through the process, realize this is what it’s going to be, you do the paperwork and walk into the dressing room, you don’t think about it anymore,” he said.
“ Now, I feel the same way I always do every year. I want to prove to everybody that I’m an elite goaltender.”
At the time, the decision to leave the Leafs for Detroit made all the sense in the world. The spectacularly talented Wings had just won the Stanley Cup, PHOENIX— More than three years after the fact, Curtis Joseph wishes he had never made the decision to leave the Maple Leafs.
“Absolutely, in hindsight, it would have been better for me if I had stayed in Toronto,” he said this week as he began to rebuild his NHL career with the Phoenix Coyotes.
“ It’s a very tricky question, and there’s a lot of things that happened that nobody knows about. But as a friend of mine in business says, sometimes your worst decisions work out the best, and sometimes your best turn out to be your worst.” The events of July 2002 that led to Joseph bolting the Leafs to sign a three- year, $24 million ( all figures U. S.) contract with Detroit will forever be shrouded in murky controversy. The Leafs, with Pat Quinn as GM, bumbled the entire process, but in the end either offered Joseph more money to stay in Toronto than he received from the Wings or made the choice to chase Ed Belfour well before Joseph decided to leave for Motown. What is indisputable, however, is that since then, Joseph has experienced a humbling ride from the top of the NHL goaltending pyramid to the point he accepted a $ 900,000 salary from the rebuilding Coyotes this summer to battle for playing time with incumbent Brian Boucher.
Just 31⁄ years ago, he was arguably the most popular Leaf, in his fourth season with the team, the starting goalie on Canada’s Olympic team and, eventually, a key component on a Toronto playoff drive that was halted by Carolina in the Eastern conference final later that spring.
Today, at 38, he is rarely men- tioned among the game’s elite any longer and not considered for the national team. He has had three surgeries on his right ankle and missed an entire year’s pay through the lockout. He then saw the Wings decline