Like any other big project, the Great Toronto Maple Leafs rebuild started off with a certain amount of optimism. The grandest, richest hockey team in the world may be a fixer-upper with a basement full of water and asbestos insulation, but it’s on the best street in the NHL with a massive lot and clear views of the lake.
It’s a grand old lady with character and history. And hey, it’s not like finances will be a problem.
So out goes Cody Franson and in comes a first-round draft pick and there’s hope. The Leafs lose 16 straight on the road, slide into the fourth spot in the Connor McDavid sweepstakes and you can almost see the future, complete with floor–ceiling windows and interior design worthy of a magazine layout.
Just maybe, this thing can work.
But how many renovations go according to plan? Or on schedule?
After the first trade deadline of The Great Rebuild came and went with nothing really happening, reality began to set in, just like it always does on a long, uncertain project with more variables than certainties: This could take a while.
The fantasy version of the Leafs rebuild involved them holding a garage sale for their expensive, long-tenured core and the NHL would come calling with bushels full of prospects and draft picks.
Trade deadline day was going to be a celebration, with Brendan Shanahan handing out spiked punch.
The reality is the rest of the league took a hard look at Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf, Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak – four players who have been constants on a team that has done nothing but fail and yet stand to earn about $120-million in the years to come – and said, “not interested.”
As is always the case when there’s no good news, Shanahan was nowhere to be found.
It was left to Leafs general manager Dave Nonis to put the appropriate spin on it.
After a day in which he flipped Olli Jokinen for peanut butter and Korbinian Holzer for toast, Nonis suggested there was interest in the club’s filet mignon and Atlantic Salmon, but the price didn’t match the value of the merchandise. And besides, who said the Leafs were rebuilding anyway?
“There isn’t a fire sale, there isn’t a date,” said Nonis. “We didn’t go out and try to move a bunch of people today. All we did was say we’re open for business to see if there are fits to make us better. To me there is a big distinction between trying to move somebody and being willing to move somebody. We’re in a spot now where we’re willing to look at options. We’re not trying to push people out.”
And, oh, by the way, Nonis is arguing that the Leafs’ players – the same ones who have won nothing in five years – are still good; that the Leafs can afford to be picky about the whole thing, even as they’re tearing it down, like their trash could be someone else’s treasure.
“The notion that the players that we have here aren’t quality players or aren’t wanted or desired by other teams is not sound,” he said. “I know from the number of calls I’ve had and discussions I’ve had with other teams, that only lives in print and on radio and television. It’s not with other clubs. Could we see a number of these players back? No question we could. It’s not a situation where everyone has to go and there’s a time frame or date everything has to be completed by.”
That’s the kind of language a contractor uses when he’s about to soak you for a bunch of money and leave your floor so slanted you need to rappel from one end of the house to the other.
With the trade deadline come and gone, the only thing Leafs fans, ownership and management alike can look forward to is the NHL draft lottery. At the moment there is a 9.5 percent chance of the rebuild being accelerated by the surest thing of all: pure talent.
But that means there’s a 90.5 chance the Leafs will draft a player who is likely years away from being an elite NHLer. It means more draft lottery hope next season – or at least let’s hope so and the Leafs brain trust doesn’t lose its nerve halfway through next season and make a run for 16th place.
It means The Great Rebuild didn’t move an inch further ahead Monday and that all trade deadline day was about for the Leafs and their fans was a brief distraction from the long road ahead.
