Richards will be staying in Dallas next season. He's a great fit there and he enjoys playing there. If they make a deep playoff run it'll only confirm it. You know they'll do something to keep him regardless of the internal cap they have set, especially as with selling the team, its easier to move with a top tier player. So Leafs fans forget about this one.
Lay off Kessel. The guys a sniper. He's not Crosby, He's not Gilmour, He's not Gretzky. If anything he's close to Dany Heatley. All the guy knows how to do is put the puck in the net which is great, every team needs one and they're hard to come by. However with that in mind, he needs a talented playmaker as well. Thats where the trouble has been as they are hard to come by too. If you look at any other team, they are building around a core couple of players. Clearly Toronto is attempting this as well, however people forget about how F'ed up the situation was under the previous manager (probably as much to blame with ownership fiddling as well). Back in the 90's for example this would take 2 seasons to fix by buying out crappy contracts and overbidding on free agents. You could easily right the ship and Toronto was damn good at it with their deep pockets. Today with the cap era, true parity has hit the league and now the big money teams like TO or NY can't just throw money around to correct bad management. Add in the timing of the cap hitting in 05/06 and Toronto continuing to make stupid moves for the first 2-3 years after the lockout and you have a really pathetic situation. The key moving forward is to build from within. Burke attempted to load up on spare parts and 2nd, and 3rd liners in attempt to build depth. This allowed the prospects and draft picks ( since most were traded for aging veterans before and just after the lockout) that they have acquired int he last couple of years to get more time in the minors and properly develop rather than throwing them into the mix in the NHL so the team could get blown out on a nightly basis like the Islanders have been doing the last couple years (I feel bad for Garth Snow, since if you think the Leafs situation is screwed up bad, Mike "Self Certified Genius" Milbury screwed them up about 20x worse. They're still paying Alexei Yashins salary for God's sake!). And yes they could have stock piled with the 2 first rounders traded for Kessel. That's a fair remark. but then Kessel is an established top tier player in the NHL regardless of what anyone thinks of him. It was a steep price to pay, but then both first rounders could turn out to be flops. Look at Alexandre Daigle in Ottawa in 94 or Patrick Stefan with Atlanta in 99. Neither are still playing in the NHL and haven't for years. Both came as huge prospects (not unlike Tyler Seguin actually) and ended up flopping. Sure Hall or Seguin are not going to flop and go onto very good careers but hindsight is 20/20 and you have to see the trade at the time of the deal. Otherwise that would be like making a stock trade and being mad 2 years later when it shoots up 50% at all the money you lost. No you didn't loose anything, you pocketed what you did at the time and moved on. Its very well Seguin could break his leg and fizzle away like many players have.
So folks before you start riding Kessel, remember he's one guy who plays a specific role in a team sport and take some patience. No one likes their team to be a loser, but given how Toronto has bought its way into competitiveness over the last 20 years, its about time they took their honest lumps and rebuilt the right way. And given Burke's cup ring from building Anahiem like this (he started with a hell of a lot more there than in Toronto too), give him the benefit of the doubt and some time to get the job done. Otherwise you might as well have not fired JFJ and let him keep pissing money everywhere in the hope of getting lucky. As for Kessel, he knows he's slumping, any NHLer knows when things are not going well. Get off his case and let him figure it out on his own. He's young and still learning so this will be a great experience for him, but don't paint him out as something he's not and that is a savior like Dougie was in 92.
Lay off Kessel. The guys a sniper. He's not Crosby, He's not Gilmour, He's not Gretzky. If anything he's close to Dany Heatley. All the guy knows how to do is put the puck in the net which is great, every team needs one and they're hard to come by. However with that in mind, he needs a talented playmaker as well. Thats where the trouble has been as they are hard to come by too. If you look at any other team, they are building around a core couple of players. Clearly Toronto is attempting this as well, however people forget about how F'ed up the situation was under the previous manager (probably as much to blame with ownership fiddling as well). Back in the 90's for example this would take 2 seasons to fix by buying out crappy contracts and overbidding on free agents. You could easily right the ship and Toronto was damn good at it with their deep pockets. Today with the cap era, true parity has hit the league and now the big money teams like TO or NY can't just throw money around to correct bad management. Add in the timing of the cap hitting in 05/06 and Toronto continuing to make stupid moves for the first 2-3 years after the lockout and you have a really pathetic situation. The key moving forward is to build from within. Burke attempted to load up on spare parts and 2nd, and 3rd liners in attempt to build depth. This allowed the prospects and draft picks ( since most were traded for aging veterans before and just after the lockout) that they have acquired int he last couple of years to get more time in the minors and properly develop rather than throwing them into the mix in the NHL so the team could get blown out on a nightly basis like the Islanders have been doing the last couple years (I feel bad for Garth Snow, since if you think the Leafs situation is screwed up bad, Mike "Self Certified Genius" Milbury screwed them up about 20x worse. They're still paying Alexei Yashins salary for God's sake!). And yes they could have stock piled with the 2 first rounders traded for Kessel. That's a fair remark. but then Kessel is an established top tier player in the NHL regardless of what anyone thinks of him. It was a steep price to pay, but then both first rounders could turn out to be flops. Look at Alexandre Daigle in Ottawa in 94 or Patrick Stefan with Atlanta in 99. Neither are still playing in the NHL and haven't for years. Both came as huge prospects (not unlike Tyler Seguin actually) and ended up flopping. Sure Hall or Seguin are not going to flop and go onto very good careers but hindsight is 20/20 and you have to see the trade at the time of the deal. Otherwise that would be like making a stock trade and being mad 2 years later when it shoots up 50% at all the money you lost. No you didn't loose anything, you pocketed what you did at the time and moved on. Its very well Seguin could break his leg and fizzle away like many players have.
So folks before you start riding Kessel, remember he's one guy who plays a specific role in a team sport and take some patience. No one likes their team to be a loser, but given how Toronto has bought its way into competitiveness over the last 20 years, its about time they took their honest lumps and rebuilt the right way. And given Burke's cup ring from building Anahiem like this (he started with a hell of a lot more there than in Toronto too), give him the benefit of the doubt and some time to get the job done. Otherwise you might as well have not fired JFJ and let him keep pissing money everywhere in the hope of getting lucky. As for Kessel, he knows he's slumping, any NHLer knows when things are not going well. Get off his case and let him figure it out on his own. He's young and still learning so this will be a great experience for him, but don't paint him out as something he's not and that is a savior like Dougie was in 92.
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