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Leafs season preview,
A struggling teenager can often be rescued by finding a role model — someone who inspires, shows a way out and a brighter dawn ahead.
Used to be Lance Armstrong was that kind of guy with the funky yellow bracelets and the more-arrogant-than-thou denials . . . but now, not so much.
Instead, Old EPO Boy is just a cautionary tale on the necessity of choosing role models wisely.
But back to the teenager thing, because that’s kind of where the Maple Leafs are at this moment. They’re out of the infant stage, no longer in elementary school but well into those teenage years where adulthood seems far away, decisions get more difficult, it’s easy to feel aimless and a little recklessness can make things much worse.
A team in need of a role model, as it were. Or, probably more accurately, a few role models, if chosen wisely.
Here are a few and the lessons they teach that could help guide the Leafs.
NEW YORK RANGERS: GET OFF THE TREADMILL
The Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference final in 1997, and then didn’t make another appearance in the post-season until 2006.
Along the way, the Blueshirts tried all manner of quick fixes and made some awful free agent decisions, but have ultimately emerged at the other end as the team they are now, a conference finalist again last year and possibly a Stanley Cup favourite this year.
How? By getting back to basics, drafting well and developing those players more effectively. GM Glen Sather has signed some of the worst contracts in hockey history (Scott Gomez, Wade Redden) but this team has also worked hard to turn first-rounders into players for a long time now.
The result is that the Rangers’ current roster is populated largely by players New York drafted, sculpted and gave an opportunity to play rather than lining up worn vets in their path. The core — Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan Callahan, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal — have never played for an NHL team other than the Rangers. Having lots of assets allowed the Rangers to acquire Rick Nash.
The biggest breakthrough in the Rangers’ new way of thinking probably came in July 2009 when Gomez was peddled to Montreal in a package that included youngster Ryan McDonagh, now a standout on the Manhattan blue line.
For years, those were the kinds of deals that worked the other way. New York ended a long playoff-less run by finally understanding there really was only one way out.
PHOENIX COYOTES: GET LEAN, GET RESOURCEFUL
Every NHL team gets burned by bad signings. There’s a lousy contract on pretty much every payroll.
The Leafs haven’t been as terrible as some suggest in this regard. But dumping Matt Lombardi and Tim Connolly suggest that there was lots of fat, and Mike Komisarek has to prove his deal wasn’t a total miscalculation.
The Leafs need to be the team right now that doesn’t offer shelter to over-the-hill veterans at inflated prices and drives a hard bargain at the negotiating table. The Coyotes aren’t that team because they can’t be, and even when they agreed to take Lombardi it was with the Leafs swallowing some of the salary.
The result in Arizona, even under the worst possible franchise conditions, is that an undeniable team chemistry has developed, one in which players go there to resuscitate their careers, with goalie Mike Smith the best example.
That’s a team that plays as if it understands preventing a goal is every bit as necessary as scoring one, which is the philosophy Randy Carlyle is trying to instill here. For some Coyotes, being in Phoenix is their last chance, and they play like it.
LOS ANGELES KINGS: GET MEAN
As one highly regarded hockey man said the other day about looking for prospects, “Find the ones that are easy to play with and hard to play against.” It’s been a long time since the Leafs were hard to play against, probably since the Gary Roberts days at the turn of the century. The Kings, many forget, scored fewer goals last season than every other NHL club except for punchless Minnesota. In the playoffs, L.A. upped its offence a little, but not a lot. But my goodness they were a miserable group to play against, and that — along with great goaltending — produced a Stanley Cup. The Leafs may not have the best personnel for this. But not all the Kings were pit bulls, either. Certainly Dustin Penner doesn’t have a rep for being a nasty piece of business. But after Darryl Sutter took over, the Kings insisted on a collective will and attitude that stunned Vancouver in the first round and flattened New Jersey in the final round. The support people — Matt Greene, Dwight King, Jarret Stoll, Jordan Nolan — were key in this regard, which cleared the L.A. “sweethearts” to do their thing.
The Leafs, meanwhile, have had too many sweethearts for too long, and the personnel won’t change overnight. There are big bodies on the way, but the likes of Josh Leivo and Tyler Biggs won’t be here for a while.
Still, Leo Komarov is a start, maybe Jay McClement, and if the likes of Carter Ashton, Korbinian Holzer and Mark Fraser want to be in the NHL, they need to understand a job comes with a need to be unfriendly from time to time.
If the Leafs can be a bit of the Rangers, Coyotes and Kings this season, sure, a playoff berth in April is possible.
More importantly, however, real success will be far more achievable.