Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, left, and newly-acquired player Phil Kessel pose for photographs during a news conference in Toronto on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. The Leafs acquired the rights to Kessel after months of talks with the Boston Bruins and then signed him to a five-year deal Friday. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darren Calabrese)
AP
After nearly 50 years - most of which were spent falling pretty far from victory - the Chicago Blackhawks broke their drought (“The curse of Espo,” maybe?) and hoisted the Cup last night. So, the question is, who is the new team to wait the longest at the old Championship Deli Counter for a pound of cured, thin-sliced glory? (Hey, at least I didn’t drop this weird analogy on you at lunch time, right?)
The “winner” is the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team who hasn’t won it all since 1967.* The kicker, though, is that the Leafs haven’t even made it to the final round since ’67, either. Yikes.
Fans of other Canadian teams/syrup-haters in general might enjoy the semi-sadistic piece TSN wrote about their struggles since that point. Here are a few choice cuts.
The Leafs have also missed the playoffs 16 times since 1967, and in 26 campaigns since 1984, they have missed out on the postseason on 12 occasions - almost every other year since.
And of course, the Maple Leafs have missed the playoffs each season since the end of the NHL lockout.
In 1997, Toronto traded defenceman Kenny Jonsson, forwards Sean Haggerty and Darby Hendrickson and a first round pick to the New York Islanders for prodigal son Wendel Clark, Mathieu Schneider and D.J. Smith.
“Draft Schmaft,” general manager Cliff Fletcher told a Toronto reporter when questioned about dealing his first rounder.
And with a deep draft class that summer, the Islanders used their pick to select netminder Roberto Luongo.
* - The St. Louis Blues and Los Angeles Kings are on a similar drought but there’s one difference: they’ve never won a Cup at all.
Unfortunately - in my opinion - the team isn’t in great shape to be more than low-seed playoff fodder in the near future. While Brian Burke is a bright hockey mind, he’s either under too much pressure to deliver a winner right away or overvalues a few big name, medium-result players.
I’ll get deeper into the nuts and bolts stuff during the summer, but the team already has a lot of money locked up in a mediocre core. For a whopping $32.6 out of a (ballpark expected) $58.8 million, the team received Dion Phaneuf, J.S. Giguere, Phil Kessel, Mike Komisarek, Mikhail Grabovski, Francois Beauchemin and Jeff Finger. Really the only decent news is that Giguere’s contract expires after next season.
The funny thing about the Tomas Kaberle rumors is that he’s one of the team’s few decent contracts. He might not do everything at an elite level, but he’s a very good offensive defenseman for the price ($4.25 million) and his contract is set to expire. Kaberle and Luke Schenn are among the few bright spots on a rough hodgepodge of overpaid players and borderline AHL’ers.
That’s not to say that the Leafs are ruined, mind you. They still have $10 million in cap space and Burke clearly loves making splashy moves. Unfortunately, his splashy moves have been either shaky or awful lately.
If the Leafs hope to end what is now the league’s longest Cup drought, they’re going to need to clean up a messy roster. It shouldn’t be easy, but if the Blackhawks taught us anything, a team can go from the basement to the penthouse pretty quickly in today’s NHL.
(Of course, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were top-3 picks in the draft so ... just be patient, Leafs fans. As usual.)