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Leaf Rumours

Revisionist theories.

There is no 100% guarantee that Vokoun, Luongo or Bryz could have ever ended up as Leafs property for a laundry list of reasons.

JFJ overpaid in every goalie move he made from Belfour's extension to the Toskala trade - but his intentions were always clear. He never wanted to be left with the empty goaltending chair when the music stopped.

It was an insecurity that cost us dearly.
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At the end of the day, he wrongly evaluated both players. No, there's no guarantee any of those players would've been Leafs but that's not the point. The point is that if you're going to spend Rask, a 1st, a 2nd, and a 4th on two goalies... make sure they're good goaltenders.
 
Revisionist theories.

There is no 100% guarantee that Vokoun, Luongo or Bryz could have ever ended up as Leafs property for a laundry list of reasons.
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There's no such thing as a 100% guarantee...but when the difference between trading for Toskala and Vokoun was the difference between a 2nd and a 4th round pick, one can say with significant amounts of confidence that had JFJ put it in his head to pay more for the vastly superior goaltender, he likely wins that battle and Florida goes after someone else.

We may have had to give up more than the 1st & 2 2nd's that Florida paid for Vokoun to outbid them for his services, but it would have been worth it.

.919, .926, .925 since traded to Florida
 
I don't think the point is that he could have 100% gotten those other guys, but rather that every time he paid a significant sum for a goalie in the deal, a much, much better one was also available and in fact traded to other teams for similar or worse packages.

It just shows his complete lack of talent evaluation skills.
 
Can't argue with that, but he did alright with his pro analysis of forwards and d-men, goalies however...
 
Did he?

He bought high on Blake. He passed up on Forsberg and Savard. Then there was Khavanov. Mark Bell. 2nd for Perreault. Johnny Pohl.

He bought on a bunch of vets, that all busted. Every single one (Allison, Lindros, Peca, O'Neill). He locked up Tucker after he was clearly on the decline. He passed up the best opportunity to move McCabe.

Kubina was his only solid addition and most people called that one of the worst contracts in hockey for years.

Other than a few mid round picks there wasn't much good there.
 
I believed in him the day he traded for Raycroft. I trusted him and his scouts.

But the day we landed Toskala when we could have had Vokoun I lost it.
 
And don't forget the fact that everyone got a NT/NM clause PLUS big bucks when they resigned. ---> see McCabe's deal, Tucker's deal, Belfour, etc., etc. Every player and agent saw him for the pansy that he was, and he overpaid even for the guys who wanted to stay and weren't going anywhere.

But his creation of what became a total disaster of the goaltending situation over several successive years is what truly distinguishes him as the worst GM ever, worse than Gord Stellick, worse than Punch Imlach (part Duh!), and worse than the illustrious Mel Bridgman during those glorious early Sens days (now that was some ugly GM'ing).
 
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I'm not sure I fault JFJ for giving Kaberle and McCabe NTCs. It's commonplace now and to lesser players. Montreal has Gomez, Gionta, Cammalleri, Markov, Hamrlik, Spacek and Plekanec all with some sort of NTC.
 
It's not that I blame him for giving the NT/NM's, its just that he also ante'd up the big bucks as well. He just couldn't play hardball, unlike Burkie who would say if you want a NT/NM then you get less $$'s. JFJ was just too weak.
 
unlike Burkie who would say if you want a NT/NM then you get less $$'s.
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He gave Komisarek a limited NTC as well. I think it's over 150 players that have some form of one. I think the best way to go is to offer limited NTCs that require the player to give a list of say 5 teams that they WOULDN'T accept a trade to.
 
Thing is, both McCabe and Kaberle took pay cuts to stay in Toronto....and worse, McCabe originally only asked for the same 4.25 million that Kaberle was asking for, JFJ thought he was being a genius by turning him down and playing hard ball with him. He still got McCabe signed at lower than the FA going rate was at the time, but he could have had him at a steal of a price if it wasn't for his shit read on the market.
 
BG said:
Can't argue with that, but he did alright with his pro analysis of forwards and d-men, goalies however...
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Really?

Khavanov, Czerkawksi, Blake, Allison, Lindros, O'Neill, Wilm, Wozneiwski, Suglobov, Bataglia ... none of these were good signings. They were all bad, useless or worse. I'm sure I could find more of these gems if I looked more closely, but I can't believe my eyes when I see people saying his only bad thing was the goaltending fiascos.

Oh, and then there was the stellar decision to fire Pat Quinn and replace him with Paul ****ing Maurice.
 
No I don't think we say it was only goaltending that was such an unmitagated disaster, but it was where he truly shit the bed. The rest were not too good for sure, we all agree on that, but what he sacrificed for the two lumps of coal we got in Raycraft and Toskola was beyond forgivable.
 
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the two talented youngsters that he relegated to a 3rd line checking role, have both broken out into legitimate 2nd line offensive support players after they got the **** away from Maurice.
 
who -- steen and stajan?

steen looked a hell of a lot better than that once he got his shit together last year. 23 G and 45 pts in his last 57 games. i hope to god that was an aberration. because **** me could the leafs use a 25 year old, 35 goal guy right about now.

not to mention colaiacovo who when push came to shove had another impressive campaign (35 points) and ended up re-upping in st. louis.
 
msun30 said:
who -- steen and stajan?

steen looked a hell of a lot better than that once he got his shit together last year. 23 G and 45 pts in his last 57 games. i hope to god that was an aberration. because **** me could the leafs use a 25 year old, 35 goal guy right about now.

not to mention colaiacovo who when push came to shove had another impressive campaign (35 points) and ended up re-upping in st. louis.
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Yeah, Steen and Stajan.

Both took significant steps back under Maurice after looking like solid, solid young players under Quinn...and then magically became solid young veterans after Maurice got the boots out of town.

Maurice allowing Colaiacovo to play with a blown out knee at the end of the 06-07 season was a gross decision as well, all in the attempts to try to sneak into a playoff spot. If they had shut the kid down when the injury occurred, he probably doesn't need the knee surgery that ate into the following season significantly...a season, that based on his current form, is the one he likely would have established himself as a solid top 4 defender who was in fact capable of staying healthy for the most part.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Steen makes us feel really, really, bad. Like...Tuukka Rask bad. I mean, this is a guy who as a rookie under Quinn, looked like such a talented, and also solid all-around player that he was getting referred to as "our next Swedish captain". I just couldn't believe how badly Maurice started treating him from pretty much the moment he stepped behind the bench. And that'll be just another tragic epitath for Ferguson's disastrous tenure as this team's GM.
 
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