Maybe it was because of performance. Maybe a contract was to blame.
Maybe it was injuries. Maybe it was a little bit of everything.
Maybe the criticism was even a little — or a lot — unfair.
Following the lead of
The Athletic’s Raptor
crew, I’ve put together a Maple Leafs club comprised of the men who
have elicited the most consternation from fans in the salary cap era.
And we’re going deep here: A general manager, a head coach, 12 forwards, eight D, and three goalies.
Let’s go!
GENERAL MANAGER
John Ferguson Jr.
There were reportedly four finalists for the Leafs’ vacant GM job in
the summer of 2003: Bob Nicholson, Neil Smith, Steve Tambellini, and a
36-year-old in the St. Louis Blues front office with a famous dad: John
Ferguson Jr.
Nicholson and Tambellini were thought to be too close to Pat Quinn,
the Leafs coach at the time and soon-to-be ex-GM. Smith was apparently a
no-go for Quinn, though. And so, evidently, the Leafs went with
Ferguson.
Richard Peddie, the Leafs president at the time, claimed to have
canvased the league and asked about upcoming executives. Sound familiar?
Except in this case (unlike Brendan Shanahan’s plucking of Kyle Dubas
from the OHL years later), Peddie vaulted Ferguson right into the GM’s
chair of a team that was doggedly pursuing a Stanley Cup. (Less than a
year later, Peddie would hire the similarly inexperienced Rob Babcock to
guide the Raptors.)
Skepticism was immediate from both fans and media: Why was a Stanley
Cup contender — the last gasp of one anyway — turning things over to a
rookie NHL GM?
Ferguson said the organization’s faith in him was “well placed and
will be rewarded.” In his first year running the team, Ferguson’s Leafs
had 103 points — the best total of the Pat Quinn era — but they would
fall short of their Cup goals, losing to Philadelphia in six games in
Round 2.
It was all downhill from there.
Following the 2004-05 lost season, the Leafs missed the playoffs in
2005-06. Ferguson then fired Quinn. It wasn’t a popular move with fans,
not unlike the Mark Shapiro-Ross Atkins dismissal of John Gibbons with
the Blue Jays. According to
The Toronto Star’s Ken Campbell, Quinn told those around him that he was effectively gone the day Ferguson replaced him as GM.
But what really agitated fans about JFJ, who promoted Paul Maurice
from the Marlies after firing Quinn, was the club’s lack of any apparent
direction.
Under Ferguson, the Leafs often paid for past performance, signing
past-their-prime stars such as Jason Allison, Eric Lindros, Jason Blake,
and Mike Peca. He was also reckless with future assets and struggled to
transition to a salary cap league. He also never appeared comfortable
operating as the face and voice of the team, which certainly didn’t help
matters in a market like Toronto.
Ferguson was fired midway through the 2007-08 season as the Leafs sat
28th in points percentage. (Peddie then named Cliff Fletcher the team’s
interim GM, another misfire that would further derail the franchise in
other ways.)
It’s worth noting that Ferguson has since gone on to become a valued
and respected member of the Boston Bruins front office where he serves
as the team’s executive director of player personnel.
HEAD COACH
Randy Carlyle
Under Carlyle, the Leafs often felt like a house of cards waiting to collapse. That they often did kinda proved the point.
Carlyle’s Toronto teams earned an undesirable rep for getting badly
out-shot. Looking back now, the numbers are pretty jarring: The Leafs
were out-shot by six shots a game in Carlyle’s first full season, eight
shots(!) a game in Year 2, and more than five shots a game at the time
of his firing in Year 3. During those three seasons, the Leafs ranked
28th, 29th, and 29th (at the time of his dismissal) in expected goals.
Thanks in part to good buddy James Mirtle, who was then at The Globe
and Mail, Corsi was filtering into the mainstream. And Carlyle’s teams
were the opposite of possession darlings.
What earned the former Leafs coach more ire from fans was his
old-school deployment, which often saw two so-called enforcers in the
lineup at the same time, as well as a smart, but low-ceiling player like
Jay McClement receiving heavy amounts of ice time.
Carlyle’s Leafs did make it to the post-season in the
strike-shortened 2013 season, and were a period away from an upset
victory over Boston in Round 1. But his tenure came to be defined by the
unsustainable strategies he put in place.
It’s what led to the Shanahan-led front office dismissing Carlyle
midway through the 2014-15 season, while the Leafs were in a playoff
spot, but still getting pummeled in the shots against department.
FORWARDS (12)
David Clarkson
A day after they
bought out the final
four years
of Mikhail Grabovski’s five-contract, the Leafs under GM Dave Nonis,
signed 29-year-old David Clarkson for seven years and nearly $37
million.
“I’m not worried about (years) six and seven right now,” Nonis said.
“I’m worried about one, and year one I know we’re going to have a very
good player. I believe that he’s got a lot of good years left in him.
He’s not 35-years-old. We never went after an old free agent.”
The now-former Leafs GM added: “If David Clarkson doesn’t score 30
goals in a Leaf uniform, but provides all the other things that we know
he’s going to provide, we’re pretty comfortable we’re a better team.”
Those words haven’t aged well.
In fact, they almost
immediately blew up in flames as Clarkson leaped off the bench
in the preseason to defend Phil Kessel from the monstrous John Scott.
The contract. The preseason brawl. The ensuing automatic 10-game
suspension to start his Leafs career. The Wendel Clark comparisons he
leaned into (wearing No. 71; Clark’s old No. 17 turned around). It all
seemed to build up into pressure Clarkson wasn’t equipped to meet.
Before his Leafs debut in Columbus, Clarkson griped about not being
on the team’s top power-play unit. He finished his first season — the
Nonis had talked about — with five goals, 11 points, and a 39 percent
expected goals mark in 60 games. All while carrying a $5.25 million cap
hit.
Things went a teensy bit better in Year 2 with 10 goals and 15 points
in 58 games. But by then, with five years still remaining on his deal,
the contract was salary cap-destroying disaster for the Leafs.
That they got out of it in February 2015, in exchange for Nathan
Horton (physically unable to play again), was a minor miracle for the
organization.
In all, over 118 games as a Leaf, Clarkson totaled 15 goals and 26 points.
His contract, which the organization re-acquired last fall as
extra security for the Mitch Marner contract negotiations, will finally expire whenever the 2019-20 season comes to an end.
Jason Blake
The final, big problematic move of the JFJ era was bringing Blake
aboard on a five-year contract when free agency opened in 2007.
Blake had just scored a career-best 40 goals for the Islanders. But
he was also about to turn 34, and those 40 goals came with a huge spike
in shooting percentage (13 percent). It reeked of the kind of overpay
and over-commitment emblematic of Leaf teams of that era.
Blake did win the Masterton Trophy for playing through a leukeimia diagnosis
in his first season, and netted a team-leading 25 goals and 63 points
for a bad Leafs team in Year 2. But he was clearly overpaid and on the
decline, and eventually sold off to Anaheim, along with another JFJ
misfire, Vesa Toskala, in 2010.
Jay McClement
It was a question of usage with McClement.
He looked like a helpful addition
when the Leafs signed him as a free agent in 2012, a defensive
“stopper” who could kill penalties and defend a lead. Carlyle grew to
adore him so much though that things eventually went too far in the old
ice-time department. Though he didn’t produce much offence by the second
year of his two-year contract — just 10 points in 81 games — McClement
still garnered almost 15 minutes a game from the Leafs coach. He played
more than 20 minutes 10 times, including one November game against
Minnesota worth highlighting in particular.
McClement logged 23 minutes and 37 seconds that night, most among
Leafs forwards, and almost eight minutes more than Phil Kessel. Yes, the
Leafs had five power plays to kill off, but as the game sheet below
indicates, McClement even topped Kessel in even-strength ice-time too.
Nik Antropov
The Antropov story turned around a bit at the end. His final two
seasons as a Leaf: 26 goals and 56 points in 72 games, followed by 21
goals and 46 points in 61 games.
But by then it was too late for many fans. A rebuilding squad
pioneered by Brian Burke would deal him to the Rangers for a
second-round pick.
It’s the early years in Toronto that really frustrated fans when
Antropov struggled to live up to sizable expectations that came with
being the highest selection by the Leafs (10th overall in 1998) since
1992 when the franchise swung and missed on somebody named Brandon
Convery.
Damien Cox in
The Toronto Star called Antropov, “the biggest
draft gamble in the history of a franchise that has flubbed one draft
after another.” Antropov came from obscurity in Kazakhstan, with one
anonymous Leafs official telling Cox, “We didn’t think anyone else would
have the guts to take him before us.”
Antropov put up a respectable 30 points in 66 games as a 19-year-old
rookie. But after that, he had trouble staying on the ice, and producing
consistently when he did make it out there. He topped 70 games
once
in his first seven seasons (returning to St. John’s of the AHL at one
point), managing more than 33 points in a season just once. By the 2004
playoffs, he had tumbled to the fourth line, notching just two assists
in 13 games that spring.
Antropov had only two goals and five points in 28 playoff games with the Leafs.
On the ice, he was another underachieving high Maple Leafs draft
pick. He has since rejoined the Leafs as a skill development consultant.
Phil Kessel
Oh, the infamous trade. One Burke hated to talk about.
“Was it worth it? Was it not worth it? I find it amusing,” the
then-president and GM said of the trade aftermath following a 2009-10
season that saw the Leafs finish 29th overall, with their first-round
pick already surrendered in the Kessel swap. “Like, I got news for you:
We’re all gonna know at some point. This is no different than two
farmers side by side arguing whether they plant soybeans or corn. One
guy plants soybeans. One guy plants corn. Guess what? We’re gonna know
at some point who won! We don’t have to argue the whole time while the
plants grow for God’s sake. We’re gonna be able to tell! You’ll
all
have an answer on this. But in the mean-time, you dissect it to death –
‘It’s too much. It’s not enough.’ And I’m amused by it more than
angered by it.”
The answer was clear even then: Burke had misjudged the quality of
his team (he claimed to know something was amiss in the preseason when
Toskala struggled), sacrificing not only a first-rounder and a
second-rounder in 2010, but another one in 2011 that became Dougie
Hamilton. (Where were the pick protections???)
It all meant that for a while anyway, Kessel was judged through the lens of the trade.
Was he really worth a price as steep as that? Why wasn’t he good enough to push the Leafs higher in the standings?
Kessel actually did his part — sixth in the league in goals per game
(0.41) as a Leaf. Management never surrounded him with similar
high-level talent though. The best teammate he ever played with in
Toronto was….Joffrey Lupul? Tyler Bozak? Dion Phaneuf?
That said, Kessel’s gruff personality, and hit-or-miss work ethic,
especially as the face (fairly or not) of Toronto teams that exploded,
made him an easy target for fans and media.
He was popular among teammates though:
Colton Orr/Frazer McLaren
It was their impenetrability in the Leafs lineup that frustrated fans, particularly during the 2013 season.
The NHL was already in the early stages of its drift away from
fighting, but the Carlyle-led Leafs still insisted on dressing both Orr
and McLaren on the fourth line — including in Game 1 of the 2013
playoffs against Boston. McLaren was bumped in Game 2, but Orr suited up
in all seven games that spring. He was held without a point. The
following summer, the Leafs — now under Nonis — brought Orr and McLaren
back on two-year deals, leaning into a style that seemed to be waning.
The two combined to play 82 games for the Leafs over the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons, with zero points.
Nazem Kadri
It was hard for anyone in Toronto — fans, media, coaches, teammates, managers — not to like Kadri.
He was bubbly. He was earnest. He had swagger and bite. And he had an
interesting set of skills. But there tended to be noise around Kadri,
for one reason or another, from the start. For a while, it was off-ice matruity concerns that
put his long-term future with the Leafs into real question. Kadri
ultimately grew into the kind of edgy centre who could score and defend
that Burke envisioned when he picked Kadri seventh overall in 2009.
But after earning lengthy, ill-advised suspensions early in playoff
series against the Bruins in both 2018 and ’19 — ones that arguably cost
the Leafs the series, he scuffed up a nice redemption story.
It speaks to his popularity that his suspension is often the third,
fourth or, even fifth factor (Jake Gardiner, Frederik Andersen, Mike
Babcock, not enough skill!) mentioned when talk of those two series
comes up.
Tim Connolly
No. 1 centre!!!
Granted he was Plan B after missing out on Brad Richards in free
agency that summer, the hope at the time was that Connolly could be the
much-needed, much-talked, about first-line centre for Kessel.
It never worked out. Playing on a two-year contract, Connolly was
injured before his first season got underway. And though he returned to
play alongside Kessel, there were no sparks. He ended up with only 36
points in 70 games, with a not-so-nice 46 percent expected goals mark
and a sub-49 percent faceoff mark. Not great for a $4.75 million cap
hit. Definitely not the No. 1 centre Burke was hoping for.
Connolly was Marlie-bound at age 31 when the 2012-13 lockout came to an end. That was the last anyone heard of him.
Tyler Bozak
Bozak arrived on the scene before Connolly — and became one of the
few (only?) college lottery tickets that later worked out great for the
Burke-led Leafs. But it was during Bozak’s first full season that the
No. 1 centre expectation noise got loud. Bozak had only 32 points in 82
games that year despite playing with Kessel and logging over 19 minutes
per game.
Bozak came around after that, evolving into a dependable complement
(and spokesman) for Kessel, a valued leader, faceoff guru, and
power-play smarty. The ill-placed talk of him as a No. 1 centre
eventually quieted down after the franchise landed a kid named Auston
Matthews.
Patrick Marleau
Half contract, half usage.
It may have been the only way to pry him out of San Jose, but giving
Marleau a third year on his free-agent deal in the summer of 2017, at a
pricey $6.25 million on the cap, was always going to be dicey. He was
close to 38 when Lamoriello brought him in, and the Leafs would soon
have extremely healthy raises to pay their young core.
But it was during the 2019 playoffs when Maple Leafs fans’ ire for him peaked.
During that regular season, the 39-year-old finished with only 37
points — then his fewest in a full season since he was an 18-year-old
rookie in San Jose. Babcock continued to lean on him in the post-season
anyway, deploying Marleau on a William Nylander-centered line even as
the series rolled along and Marleau struggled to get much done
offensively.
He had one shot or less in five of the seven games against Boston.
(It’s fair to question Babcock, though it also seems right to ask who
should have played in Marleau’s place. Kadri was suspended. Trevor
Moore was a rookie. Tyler Ennis may have been stretched too far with a
promotion. If anything, it was the other puzzle pieces that probably
needed rearranging.)
Otherwise, Marleau was adored by teammates and likable for his quiet, persistent approach to the game.
Of course, the contract did come back to the bite the Leafs in the
end — with a first-round pick being sacrificed to Carolina to get that
last year off the books. Fans will likely have mixed feelings about the
brief Marleau era.
Joffrey Lupul
It was always a question of health with Lupul, who was acquired in a
laudable trade with Anaheim that also landed the Leafs Jake Gardiner and
sent Francois Beauchemin back to the Ducks.
When he did play and was feeling it, Lupul could be a force:
It looked like the Leafs really had something when they hooked Lupul
up with Kessel during the 2011-12 season. He put up a point per game (67
in 66) that year and earned an invite to the All-Star Game.
But Lupul was always dealing with an injury. A groin. A bruised foot.
A knee issue. A broken arm from a Phaneuf misfire. A broken hand after
he fell on his stick at practice. Sports hernia surgery. Surgery on his
knee.
Not long after the lockout ended in 2013, the Leafs gave Lupul a
five-year extension. He suited up 69 times in Year 1 of the deal, 55 in
Year 2, 46 in Year 3, and then he was gone — mysteriously disappearing
after a series of failed physicals.
DEFENCE (8)
Mike Komisarek
The headliner of Burkeapalooza in the summer of 2009, Komisarek was
probably doomed from the start by expectations — belligerence!
pugnacity! — and of course, that contract: five years and $21.5 million.
If only analytics were a larger part of the calculus for management
back then. In his last year with the Canadiens, Komisarek posted a 45
percent expected goals mark, and he may have been propped up by his
defence partner, Andrei Markov. He was also approaching 30 and lacked
speed in a game that was only getting faster.
Komisarek seemed determined to live up to the truculent expectations
right away, racking up 15 penalty minutes opposite his old Montreal
teammates in his Leafs debut.
His fight snowballed from there.
The Leafs were outscored 10-2 in October when he was on the ice
5-on-5. Fans got on him. He pressed more. Shoulder surgery ended his
season in January.
Though he was still among the higher-paid players on the team,
Komisarek fell to third pair in his second year with the Leafs. He was a
Marlie by the time the lockout-shortened 2013 season rolled around and
was finally bought out that summer.
Jake Gardiner
The errors could be glaring. And after Game 7 in 2018, when Gardiner stepped up and
took the blame for the Leafs defeat, everything else positive Gardiner had produced was largely (and unfortunately) drowned out.
He’s the most polarizing, but legitimately good, player the Leafs
have had in recent memory outside of, and maybe even including, Kadri.
One corner of the fanbase is
convinced that
Gardiner is not all his supporters make him out to be, and that his
mistakes are indeed a fatal flaw. Others dig (not even all that deep)
into the analytics and find a incredibly useful defenceman, a one-man
breakout who drives play the right way.
For the non-believers, consider a very basic fact: Over the last
three seasons of Gardiner’s lengthy tenure in Toronto, when the teams
were talented, the Leafs outscored teams by 58 goals when Gardiner was
on the ice in 5-on-5 situations.
Oddly enough, in the beginning, it was the
#FreeJake Gardiner campaign
that started the debate around him. He was held to only 12 games during
the 2013 regular season and he was benched for Game 1 of the playoffs.
He then stacked up five points in the remaining six games of the series while logging over 23 minutes a night.
Bryan McCabe
The positive narrative surrounding McCabe seemed to change near the
end of the 2004, a season that saw him finish fourth in Norris Trophy
voting.
In Game 5 of their second-round playoff series against the Flyers,
McCabe played almost 26 minutes but was on the ice for six of seven
Philadelphia goals. And he was out there for two of Philadelphia’s three
goals in the decisive Game 6, including as the last man back when
Jeremy Roenick ended things in OT:
Then came the own goal, which really shouldn’t have morphed into as
big of a focal point as did. It was October, for one thing, and just one
game of 82 for a mediocre team that missed the playoffs by more than a
few points.
Part of it was money.
Prior to the 2006-07 season, McCabe had signed a five-year deal worth
almost $30 million. And although he would deliver 15 goals and 57
points the first year of that contract, he would fall on hard times
after that before finally being dealt to Florida for Mike van Ryn just
prior to the 2008-09 season.
Never the most cerebral player, he came to be defined — rather unfairly — by the own goal.
But as one of the pillars of the Leaf teams that veered deepest into
the post-season in recent memory, McCabe should be remembered for a lot
more than that, and undoubtedly as
one of the better Leafs of the last 25 years.
Nikita Zaitsev
Contracts, contracts, contracts.
In a cap world, it’s often about the contract. And for Zaitsev, his
second NHL contract — seven long years, with a $4.5 million annual cap
hit — topped anything he could possibly offer on the ice.
Babcock liked to point out that Zaitsev was better than most thought,
the best the Leafs had on defence at separating man from puck. Maybe if
Zaitsev’s cut of the pie had been a mere $2.5-3 million, he would have
been more appreciated by fans for that stuff.
He was right around the 50 percent mark in expected goals as a Leaf,
even though he was buried in the defensive zone, primarily against
gruelling competition.
But on a team where every dollar counts, Zaitsev was never going to
be able to overcome his contract in the eyes of fans. And not without
merit. That the Leafs managed to extricate themselves from that deal
last summer with no long-term penalty, is no small feat.
Dion Phaneuf
It’s possible, maybe even likely, that on a different – a.k.a. better
– team, Phaneuf wouldn’t have attracted anywhere near the same amount
of attention and fury as he ultimately did in
Toronto.
Had he been asked to be the second or third best defenceman on the
Leafs (and paid as such), and not one of the faces of the team alongside
Kessel, he likely would have enjoyed more success, and as a result,
popularity.
Instead, Phaneuf proved to be overexposed as the No. 1 D in
Toronto,
particularly under Carlyle. It’s difficult to separate Phaneuf’s
underlying numbers in those years from the schemes and strategies of his
coach, but either way, they weren’t pretty. What they seemed to reveal
was a defenceman ill-equipped to do the primary job that was asked of
him — to slow down top lines. Nor did he bring much offence to the
table. Which meant that he didn’t meet the job description of No. 1
defencemen, nor the compensation that comes with it.
The day before the 2014 Winter Classic in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Leafs
gave their captain a seven-year extension with a rich $7 million cap
hit. That put Phaneuf among the highest-paid defenders in the game when
the contract kicked off in the 2014-15 season.
Phaneuf couldn’t live it up to the deal, one a Lou Lamoriello-led
front office managed to extricate itself from at no long-term cost in a
blockbuster trade with Ottawa.
Still, at least some of the ire that came Phaneuf’s way was
misplaced. It really should have been laid at the feet of management –
starting with Burke and ending with Nonis. Phaneuf wasn’t suited for the
public-facing aspect of the captaincy, which matters more in
Toronto
than it might in other markets. That mattered all the more because the
other guy who might have shared some of that load – Kessel – shied away
from it entirely.
Phaneuf was rightly panned for his role in Salutegate. Whether a
planned or impromptu reaction to fans’ frustration, Phaneuf, as captain,
could and should have, prevented it from happening.
He did work hard at practice, in the gym, and during games — setting
as much of the tone as he could, that way. He was looked up to by
younger players, and made a real effort at bringing them along. Morgan
Rielly has
raved
about Phaneuf’s mentorship. But as is the case with many of the names
on this list, Phaneuf’s place in Leafs history – and in the minds of
both fans and media – is complicated by the messy state of the
organization for nearly all of his tenure.
Tomas Kaberle
He’s undeniably
one of the best players the Leafs have ever produced, an eighth-round pick who has more points than any Leafs defenceman not names Borje Salming.
Still, what often irked fans over Kaberle’s 12 years with the team
was an unwillingness to let ‘er rip from the point. Kaberle was the
opposite of Tyson Barrie, firing only as a last resort. That was
especially true during Kaberle’s early years (before the 2004-05
lockout) when he was sometimes averaging not much more than a shot per
game — including 82 shots in 82 games as an NHL sophomore.
“Shoot!” fans in attendance at the Air Canada Centre would scream as Kaberle hung onto the puck during a power play.
The question now is whether those concerns were overblown.
Were the Leafs hurt by Kaberle’s reluctance to shoot? Probably a
little. But it also seemed like a grievance very much of the time, when
stats — and the thinking they induced — were far less advanced than they
are today.
Gardiner, for instance, averaged fewer shots for his Leafs career
(1.43) than Kaberle (1.5), but rarely, if ever, did Gardiner’s
unwillingness to shoot brew into anything of consequence.
Like Gardiner, Kaberle was knocked for not putting his 200-plus pound
frame to work defensively. Unlike Gardiner, for most of Kaberle’s Leafs
career there were no possession stats kicking around to suggest he was
doing more good than harm.
Roman Polak
Babcock probably had this one right, looking back now.
The former Leafs coach took some heat for his devotion to Polak over
the years. Polak was heavy, tough and determined. He was a man, as
Babcock liked to say. There was the time, for instance, during the
last-place 2015-16 season, when Polak took a
puck to the face, got stitched up, and returned to set up a goal.
And so while he didn’t move the puck that well, he brought a punch
the Leafs lacked otherwise. Though he started a large portion of shifts
in the defensive zone, Polak ended up right around 50 percent expected
goals in his final two seasons with the Leafs. Not bad, in other words.
Jeff Finger
If the Leafs did really intend to sign Finger for four years and $14
million on the first day of free agency in 2008 (and not Kurt Sauer as
some have speculated), the question of why remains just as unclear today
as it was back then.
Finger was 28 going on 29 at that point. He’d played only 94 games in
the league and was even scratched in some playoff games that spring for
Colorado. “Me and my agent were joking when we sent the contract to the
(Players’ Association). They were like: ‘Who’s this guy?’ I kind of
laughed,” Finger told
The Star’s Kevin McGran at the time. “I’m sure a lot of people are wondering who I am and what I’m about.”
Then-Leafs coach Ron Wilson boasted that Finger was the most improved
defenceman in the Western Conference. He’d play the hard minutes, kill
penalties, be “tough and mean” around the net.
“We feel he has tremendous upside and has potential,” then-interim GM
Cliff Fletcher said of Finger in conversation with Tim Wharnsby of
The Globe and Mail.
Finger did block some shots and chewed up 20 minutes a game in Year 1
while playing primarily with a 19-year-old Luke Schenn. In his second
season with the Leafs, Finger suited up just 39 times while playing
under 14 minutes a night.
The final two years of Finger’s four-year deal were spent with the Marlies.
GOALIE (3)
Andrew Raycroft
“We paid a good price, but we understood that we had to move something of value in order to get this player.”
The player was Andrew Raycroft and the price John Ferguson Jr. was referring to in conversation with
The Star was prized goalie prospect, and the team’s No. 1 pick a year earlier, Tuukka Rask.
It’s still confounding all these years later how that became the
price the Leafs GM agreed to pay for Raycroft. Any trade value Raycroft
had previously built up should have been gone by the summer of 2006. The
season that earned him the Calder Trophy — highlighted by a .926 save
percentage — had been the one
before the 2004-05 lockout. In
the new world that had followed, Raycroft’s numbers had crumbled. In
2005-06 he went 8-19-2, with an .879 save percentage for Boston. How
could he possibly have fetched an opposing team’s No. 1 prospect?
Yes, Justin Pogge, the Leafs’ third-round pick in 2004, looked to be
on the rise as well as the WHL MVP and goalie of the year in the CHL.
But Rask had just completed a sterling season himself as an 18-year-old
in the Finnish league (.926). Even if you thought Pogge
might be the future, that still doesn’t explain why Rask would be the acquisition cost for someone like Raycroft.
So why not keep both?
Fans were rightly frustrated when Raycroft flailed as the Leafs No.
1. (He did temporarily match the franchise record for wins!) The wound
stung even more as Rask developed into a star. All told, the Leafs got
91 games of subpar netminding from Raycroft. The Bruins have gotten more
than 500 games and counting from Rask, including a Vezina Trophy, plus
50 wins in the post-season and a Stanley Cup.
Not good.
Vesa Toskala
Also not good: spending more quality assets to gamble on yet another
goalie one year — almost to the day! — after the Raycroft/Rask swap.
At the outset of draft weekend in Columbus in 2007, Ferguson
surrendered picks No. 13 (which became Lars Eller) and 44 (Aaron
Palushaj), along with a fourth-round selection in 2009 (Craig Smith) for
Toskala, a 30-year-old who had been No. 2 to Evgeni Nabokov in San
Jose, and a declining Mark Bell.
Toskala had a strong start to his career with the Sharks, posting a
.929 save percentage in 39 games over his first two seasons. In his
first year after the lockout, his save percentage dipped to .901. It was
.908 the season before the Leafs acquired him.
Does that sound like a No. 1 goalie?
Before he even played a game for them, the Leafs awarded Toskala — who still had another year remaining on his current deal — a 2 yr extension with a $4 million cap hit.
He started 64 games in his debut season, but unfortunately for the
Leafs, and their frustrated fans, he was only a slight upgrade over
Raycroft, finishing the year tied for 25th in save percentage (.904)
among those that started at least 40 games.
There were regrettable moments. And Toskala, a laid-back and
easygoing fellow, didn’t seem to possess the Jack Campbell gene for
accountability when talking with the media.
In Year 2 — when his new contract kicked in — the wheels came off entirely as his save percentage plummeted to .891.
He was also failing to keep the puck out in shootouts, which led to
then-coach Wilson, in an almost unbelievable sequence of events,
replacing him with 41-year-old Curtis Joseph for a shootout against
Anaheim:
Toskala fell even further in year three (.874) and was finally shipped off with Blake to Anaheim for Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
Jonathan Bernier
In a different universe, the Jonathan Bernier experience in 2013-14
might have worked out better. It’s easy to forget now, in light of how
the Leafs fell apart that season, but Bernier was actually a top-tier
goalie when he first arrived from the L.A. Kings.
The problem? The Leafs, under Carlyle, were second-last in the league in both possession and expected goals.
And Bernier was prone to give up a bad goal, which didn’t endear him to fans during a rocky time for the organization:
Another collapse by the Leafs — Bernier included — in the 2014-15 season only made for more sour feelings.
When Babcock came aboard the following season, all he seemed to see
was how small Bernier — listed at 6-feet, 185 pounds — was. Not the
goalie to lead his team into the future. Not long after the Leafs got
that guy the following summer — trading for Andersen, a relative giant
in comparison at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds — Bernier was dealt to Anaheim for
future considerations.
He’s been a reliable 1B type ever type since.
