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The Under 25 Castaways

BeLeafer

BeLeafer

Well-known member
You often hear it said that the Leafs have no identity. That's not really true, however.

When Brian Burke took over the Leafs, the pipeline was more or less empty. Years of trading away draft picks (including many firsts) and two of its rare high end, undeveloped prospects (Steen, Rask) left a very thin talent pool and asset base for him to work with. Say what you will about continuing this trend with the Kessel trade, he tried to fill this gaping hole through the trade market by going after formerly highly rated prospects who weren't working out for their teams. Nonis has continued this approach, though he is obviously a less adept trader.

The Leafs thus have a roster replete with other teams castaways, many of whom had character issues swirling around them. Herein lies the root of the irony often noted about Burke trying to build a team with character and ending up with the product he had. Each of the following players qualify:

Kessel
Lupul
JVR
Phaneuf
Gardiner
Franson
Bernier
Holland
Panik
Ashton
Bozak (undrafted)

That's 4 or 5 of the top 6 forward group, 3 of the top 4 blueline group, and the starting goaltender. In short, the core of this team is made up of other teams castaways. It's what defines the Leafs.

The result is a team with a good level of skill but a questionable dedication to purpose and often lacking in smarts. You can maybe get away with having a handful of these types of players filling top roles, but there's just too many reclamation projects in this core to be anything more than a stop gap measure until the pipeline is repaired.
 
Re: The Castaways

The Leafs have a terrible track record in drafting and developing their own players. Sure, once in a blue moon they'll manage to find some half-decent player but for an organization as filthy rich as this; you'd expect a hell of a lot more. Its an embarrassment that the last impact player developed and drafted worth a damn was Wendel Clark.

The organization might as well keep trading away draft picks because the bafoons doing the draft decision making and the player development is a joke. Add in a few bad general managers throughout the years and you have a great recipe for failure and mediocrity. The way the organization works, the Leafs have a better chance at building something by obtaining talented castoffs through trades and over paying freeagency, then drafting and development their own players; as pathetic as that is.

Shannahan has a lot of work to do, coming from very successful organizations, there maybe a glimmer of hope he can employ that same organizational structure and blue print for success.
 
Re: The Castaways

meh.

seems like other teams enjoy using our castaways just fine - Rask, Steen, Stralman, Gunnar, Kuly, Schenn, Mitchell, etc. - so it's only fair that we return the favor.
 
Re: The Castaways

Bringing in Hunter was a move to start addressing this. I'd imagine we'll see more changes in scouting since that is the main reason we haven't won in nearly 50 years.
 
Re: The Castaways

BeLeafer said:
You often hear it said that the Leafs have no identity. That's not really true, however.

When Brian Burke took over the Leafs, the pipeline was more or less empty. Years of trading away draft picks (including many firsts) and two of its rare high end, undeveloped prospects (Steen, Rask) left a very thin talent pool and asset base for him to work with. Say what you will about continuing this trend with the Kessel trade, he tried to fill this gaping hole through the trade market by going after formerly highly rated prospects who weren't working out for their teams. Nonis has continued this approach, though he is obviously a less adept trader.

The Leafs thus have a roster replete with other teams castaways, many of whom had character issues swirling around them. Herein lies the root of the irony often noted about Burke trying to build a team with character and ending up with the product he had. Each of the following players qualify:

Kessel
Lupul
JVR
Phaneuf
Gardiner
Franson
Bernier
Holland
Panik
Ashton
Bozak (undrafted)

That's 4 or 5 of the top 6 forward group, 3 of the top 4 blueline group, and the starting goaltender. In short, the core of this team is made up of other teams castaways. It's what defines the Leafs.

The result is a team with a good level of skill but a questionable dedication to purpose and often lacking in smarts. You can maybe get away with having a handful of these types of players filling top roles, but there's just too many reclamation projects in this core to be anything more than a stop gap measure until the pipeline is repaired.
Click to expand...

This is just a prime example of how you must build through the draft and not give up on young talent if you want a true contender. Building a team through FA, trades and the scrap heap rarely works.
 
Re: The Castaways

zeke said:
meh.

seems like other teams enjoy using our castaways just fine - Rask, Steen, Stralman, Gunnar, Kuly, Schenn, Mitchell, etc. - so it's only fair that we return the favor.
Click to expand...

Uh, you missed the key point there, zeke.

Show me any other teams that rely so heavily on castaways. Majority of top six forwards and top four defensemen, as well as starting goaltender. I doubt there's one out there and certain none that have been contenders or Cup winners.
 
Re: The Castaways

The Bruins arguably two more important players during their cup run were both "castaways", Chara and the King of Castaways, Tim Thomas. Also Dennis Seidenberg, Nathan Horton, Michael Ryder, Tukka Rask....
 
Re: The Castaways

Why is Phil Kessel a castaway? Boston wanted to keep him, tried to play contract hardball with him and lost.
Why is Gardiner a cast away? Anaheim wanted a legit top pairing defender and the cost was a 1st round pick with top pairing upside.
Why is Bernier a cast away?
Why is Bozak a cast away?
Even Franson is a bit silly here, the Preds were cash strapped and were trying to save their pennies to keep Suter & Weber together
Since when is Ashton or Panik really a part of this team?


You've really stretched this argument to it's logical breaking point to make it.
 
Re: The Castaways

MindzEye said:
Why is Phil Kessel a castaway? Boston wanted to keep him, tried to play contract hardball with him and lost.
Why is Gardiner a cast away? Anaheim wanted a legit top pairing defender and the cost was a 1st round pick with top pairing upside.
Why is Bernier a cast away?
Why is Bozak a cast away?
Even Franson is a bit silly here, the Preds were cash strapped and were trying to save their pennies to keep Suter & Weber together
Since when is Ashton or Panik really a part of this team?


You've really stretched this argument to it's logical breaking point to make it.
Click to expand...

It's a pointless argument. Get talent. Period. How you acquire it is irrelevant.
 
Re: The Castaways

Get talent at key positions, surround talent with guys who buy into their roles and the system, have top to bottom continuity, and yes get lucky too.
 
Re: The Castaways

MindzEye said:
Why is Phil Kessel a castaway? Boston wanted to keep him, tried to play contract hardball with him and lost.
Why is Gardiner a cast away? Anaheim wanted a legit top pairing defender and the cost was a 1st round pick with top pairing upside.
Why is Bernier a cast away?
Why is Bozak a cast away?
Even Franson is a bit silly here, the Preds were cash strapped and were trying to save their pennies to keep Suter & Weber together
Since when is Ashton or Panik really a part of this team?


You've really stretched this argument to it's logical breaking point to make it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have to agree. This whole argument's a pretty big stretch. The only real "castaway" on the list is Joffrey Lupul. The Ducks viewed him as a pure salary dump, and were forced to include a good prospect in Gardiner (and a 4th rounder) to get us to take him.
 
Re: The Castaways

Perhaps it's the choice of term -- "castaway" -- that people object to, but the point stands.

The Leafs rely on acquiring talent from other teams instead of drafting and developing their own. This is 100% fact.
 
Re: The Castaways

Volcanologist said:
Perhaps it's the choice of term -- "castaway" -- that people object to, but the point stands.

The Leafs rely on acquiring talent from other teams instead of drafting and developing their own. This is 100% fact.
Click to expand...
Yeah, sure, it's a fact. But this isn't something that you can fix in a short time-frame, obviously.

The important thing to me is that they're already doing all the right things to fix this. If you look back at our last 4-5 drafts, we've made five first round picks, all of whom are still in the Leaf organization. For the most part, we've held on to our draft picks and overall, if you look at all the prospects we picked in those drafts, they're all still prospects in our organization with the exception of a few guys that we didn't sign, which means we're not continuing the Leaf tradition of dumping prospects early in their development:

Tyler Biggs - Solar Bears/Marlies
Stuart Percy - Marlies/Leafs
Josh Leivo - Marlies/Leafs
Tom Nilsson - Marlies
David Broll - Marlies
Garret Sparks - Solar Bears/Marlies
Morgan Rielly - Leafs
Matt Finn - Marlies
Connor Brown - Marlies
Ryan Rupert - Solar Bears
Victor Loov - Marlies
Frederik Gauthier - CHL
Carter Verhaeghe - CHL
Antoine Bibeau - Marlies
Andreas Johnson - SHL
William Nylander - SHL
Rinat Valiev - CHL

Sure, it'd be nice if more of these guys were on the NHL roster right now making an impact, but isn't this how we're supposed to do it? Keep your draft picks, make your draft picks and then be patient with your draft picks as they graduate from the CHL/Europe/NCAA, to the AHL, and then once they're ready on to the NHL.

And we do have guys that are making pretty encouraging progress even right now. Johnson and Nylander are lighting up the SHL as teenagers. Stuart Percy and Josh Leivo are on the cusp of being regular NHLers, after we slowly and patiently let them progress through junior, the AHL and then to the NHL. Connor Brown is off to a good start in his first season of professional hockey, as is Victor Loov in his first season in North America.
 
Re: The Castaways

Deckie007 said:
It's a pointless argument. Get talent. Period. How you acquire it is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that. In hockey esp, building through the draft and keeping young talent seems very important. The Salary Cap plays into that as well because it's hard to buy a winner. For the most part ALL of the top teams in the NHL have built through the draft.
 
Re: The Castaways

CaptainBolduke said:
I'm not sure about that. In hockey esp, building through the draft and keeping young talent seems very important. The Salary Cap plays into that as well because it's hard to buy a winner. For the most part ALL of the top teams in the NHL have built through the draft.
Click to expand...

But does it really matter where you got the player from if they're talented and under a good contract? I mean, would we seriously be better off with Luke Schenn signed long term than JVR signed long term? Would keeping Luke Schenn be the right thing because we drafted and developed him our self, but we're guilty of taking on other team's castaways when we traded our home grown Shenn for JVR?

Any time you start applying silly blanket arguments, it's probably wrong. I've brought up the point myself recently, asking how much better we would be had we simply kept Steen & Rask and not traded them for scraps...but that has nothing to do with them being home grown, but instead everything to do with what we received for them being of significantly less talent than they possessed. If we traded Kessel for shit, it wouldn't matter that Kessel wasn't homegrown talent, but that we traded talent for no talent.
 
Re: The Castaways

I don't think the author of this thread is that far out to lunch. It's safe to say that the good teams in the NHL have drafted well and the crappy teams haven't drafted well.

Montreal is a prime example. All of their best players were drafted by them: Subban, Price, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Gallagher, Markov, Pleks etc.
 
Re: The Castaways

MindzEye said:
But does it really matter where you got the player from if they're talented and under a good contract? I mean, would we seriously be better off with Luke Schenn signed long term than JVR signed long term? Would keeping Luke Schenn be the right thing because we drafted and developed him our self, but we're guilty of taking on other team's castaways when we traded our home grown Shenn for JVR?

Any time you start applying silly blanket arguments, it's probably wrong. I've brought up the point myself recently, asking how much better we would be had we simply kept Steen & Rask and not traded them for scraps...but that has nothing to do with them being home grown, but instead everything to do with what we received for them being of significantly less talent than they possessed. If we traded Kessel for shit, it wouldn't matter that Kessel wasn't homegrown talent, but that we traded talent for no talent.
Click to expand...

Agree. The following stay is probably more relevant.

mirtle @mcauz56 Leafs haven't produced a full-time NHLer they drafted later than 7th overall since 2007
 
Re: The Castaways

MindzEye said:
Why is Phil Kessel a castaway? Boston wanted to keep him, tried to play contract hardball with him and lost.
Why is Gardiner a cast away? Anaheim wanted a legit top pairing defender and the cost was a 1st round pick with top pairing upside.
Why is Bernier a cast away?
Why is Bozak a cast away?
Even Franson is a bit silly here, the Preds were cash strapped and were trying to save their pennies to keep Suter & Weber together
Since when is Ashton or Panik really a part of this team?


You've really stretched this argument to it's logical breaking point to make it.
Click to expand...

^^ This.

This thread is silly & pointless.
 
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