Trade Deadline Dilemmas

Tomorrow is not going to be a pretty day. Mats Sundin is not going anywhere, and from everything we've heard neither will Pavel Kubina, Darcy Tucker, Tomas Kaberle, or Bryan McCabe. If those guys don't go, can we even call tomorrow a rebuilding day? Moving Alex's Steen and Ponikarovsky is hardly going to amount to anything significant, and aren't those the kind of young, cheap, semi-talented players we should be building around in the first place?

The Leafs could never build a Stanley Cup team successfully. I don't know why we were expecting them to get the rebuilding thing right. This is an organisation that has fucking up ingrained deep with in it. No disrespect to Cliff Fletcher, who I'm sure did his darnedest to try to convince someone, anyone, to jump ship, but if the Leafs can't move any of those contracts (McCabe is still a possibility, I hear, and in Kubina's case, his contract provides a window in his no-tradability this summer) it will be less a rebuilding process, and more say, a redecorating one. Let's try moving the couch over here. Hang up some new drapes. Bright, colourful flowers provide a great spark to any room. Really we should be knocking down walls and tearing up foundations.

But hey they have the contracts, they earned them, even if Fergie was maybe over eager with them. We should be impressed that Mats has chosen to stay loyal to Toronto. I think most people are just confused. Is this really such a great city, is what we're all wondering. What did we ever do to inspire such devotion? But that's just Toronto. If you don't love us enough, we get angry, but damn it, if you start loving us back, you better watch out. That's when we get really mad.

Just deal with it. He said he doesn't believe in the idea of rental players, you gotta be there October to June, and you have to respect that. I do. Do it right or don't do it at all. Of course, the Leafs have to resign him now. They really, really, top priority, get his name on a contract and make sure that when he retires he retires as a Maple Leaf. This forced trade fiasco probably has not helped anyone - will he even want to come back next year? Frig, he better. Or else what was the point? The Leafs end up the big losers with no prospects, no draft picks, no captain to hold them together and just a bunch of angry, frustrated fans.

Jason