martin prince wrote:
csb101 wrote:
I'm hoping they come in dead last this year so we have a shot at a future franchise player next draft and stop buying has-beens.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and we were talking about blown prospects and missed opportunties with the Leafs.
The subject of Tom Kurvers came up and how we almost missed drafting Eric Lindros that year as a result of that trade. Then we looked it up to see that they actually missed drafting Scott Neidermayer instead that year.
So the question was asked. Had the Leafs drafted Neidermayer - would he have become the player he turned out to be?
And ofcourse, what might become of John Tavares if they draft him?
I'm not sure if it's the Leafs personel, or the pressure of playing here, or both, but our track record with prospects speaks for itself.
It's too hard to predict stuff like that, though other than Wendel Clark, the Leafs' high draft picks almost never work out here probably due to the pressure, and the team's perpetual desire to never want to rebuild - until now. We gave up on Brad Boyes a few years ago, and he'll probably be the scoring leader on the Blues this year again (I hope so; I have him on my hockey pool!). I also think Luke Schenn will turn out well.
Maybe Neidermayer might not have been as good without Rafalski or Scott Stevens (who I wish was still around so he could concuss Cindy Crosby
). Maybe Brodeur would never be a record breaker if he never played on a trap team and didn't have such a good defense in front of him his whole career. To hard to say. However, Eddie Belfour, the drunk who is still my favourite goalie to this day, was a truly proven and quality goalie in my opinion b/c he took Dallas to a Cup, made many visits to the playoffs as a Blackhawk, and when he came to the Leafs with a sh!tty team and a non-existant defense of Aki Berg and Jykri Lumme, he still kept the Leafs in the playoff hunt the whole regular season and singlehandedly eliminated the Senators in that 1st round '03/'04 series where he posted 3 shutouts. Same with Cujo, when his consistent play got us home-ice in the Pat Quinn era with a suspect defense, but better offense and toughness (i.e. Domi and Roberts).
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