Looking at a hopeful Maple Leaf future while checking in on some ex-Leafs in the playoffs…

Leaf supporters are a hardy lot, obviously.  And for now, they have every right to be hopeful—and optimistic.  The Leafs have a roster with a few youngsters who already have shown they can play, like Morgan Rielly and of course Nylander. They also have Connor Brown, Mitch Marner and some other intriguing prospects in the pipeline.

As we all know, they have a lot of draft picks stockpiled heading into next month (and in the next couple of NHL drafts) so they will have ample opportunities to find a hidden gem along the way.  Throw in the fact that they actually select first overall in the upcoming June entry draft, and it all feels pretty good.  They have a shrewd management team in place and a top coach, too.

The challenge is: they still need players. Will all the aforementioned “kids” become stars?  Difference makers? Or will some just become replaceable parts, like so many in the Leaf system before them?

I know many fans are upbeat these days about the future, and understandably so. But when you watch the NHL playoffs, you realize just how big a gap there is between a roster like the Leafs have—even with all their “potential” and the youngsters in the pipeline—and clubs that know what it takes to compete at the highest levels in the month of May, and who are actually already doing it right now, not just talking about what they might be able to do some day.

The Leafs might well be getting better soon, but that may not be enough in the next couple of years.

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Some playoff thoughts:


I was pulling for Bruce Boudreau in these playoffs, and was hoping his Ducks could get to the Conference finals. He’s a guy I’ve always liked. Seems to be a pretty straight shooter, relates well to players and has done an exceptional job, really, with both the Capitals and the Ducks. He earned his way to an NHL job, too, after working in the minor leagues for several years.  The fatal flaw is that, for whatever reason, his teams have not been able to get to the finals or win a championship.  Sometimes unfairly, when the players don’t deliver, we put it on the coach.  He’s landed nicely in Minnesota after being let go by General Manager Bob Murray after the team's latest playoff disappointment.  But I thought this might have been his (and Anaheim’s) year.

I remember Boudreau as a Toronto Marlie back in the early 1970s.  I saw him play junior hockey at Maple Leaf Gardens for former Leaf great George Armstrong, then the Marlie coach.  Boudreau was a skilled offensive player as a junior, but not a big, dominant kind of player.  (Off the top of my head, here are names I seem to recall from some of those Marlie teams:  Paulin Bordeleau, big Bob Dailey, Mark and Marty Howe, Mike Palmateer. I should remember some other names, as well; that was a really, really good junior squad…)

Boudreaux was drafted by the Leafs in the summer of 1975 after his junior career was over, but I recall quite vividly that  he was really ticked that his Peterborough Petes rival, Doug Jarvis was actually selected ahead of him by the Maple Leafs.  I remember some comments he made via the Toronto media. (I’d have to check and see what rounds they were chosen; my vague recollection is that Jarvis was selected in the second round, Boudreau in the third.) The Leafs ended up sending Jarvis to Montreal in a summertime trade before he ever wore the blue and white.  Boudreau said at the time he had outplayed Jarvis as a junior, and felt he should have been drafted higher.

Unfortunately, Bruce’s NHL career never fully took off.  I remember he would be called up to the Leafs on occasion and he would flash on offense from time to time, but never stuck.  Without looking it up, I’ll hazard a guess that he didn’t register 20 goals in the NHL.  But he had a long and solid AHL career. Jarvis, meanwhile, was a stud defensive center for the hated Habs (usually playing with Bob Gainey and Jimmy Roberts), a key cornerstone player for Scotty Bowman as a smart, solid fourth-line center on four Montreal championship squads in the mid and late 1970s.

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I don’t think former Leaf netminder James Reimer has seen the ice for the Sharks as they gear up to take on the tough St. Louis Blues in the NHL semi-finals. But I would enjoy seeing the popular former Leaf get a shot at helping San Jose advance. It feels, though, that this might finally be St. Louis’ year. Barring an injury or a coach’s decision to give the team a jolt if San Jose loses the first two or three games, I don’t think Reimer (who played quite well for the Sharks since his trade from the Leafs) will get that shot.

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I have not seen enough of what the Penguins have done in the playoffs to know if Phil Kessel is the “same” player he was at his best in Toronto, and whether he has morphed into a more all-over-the-ice kind of player. Some VLM reader can perhaps share their thoughts on his play. 

We all remember Kessel was a bit of a lightning rod figure with Toronto. For years we debated whether the big trade with Boston was a good deal.  It doesn’t matter any more.  There is no question Kessel was a dynamic offensive talent. And while he struggled against his old Bruin team for a time, he came to life when Boston met the Leafs in the playoffs a few years back and had some very good moments. 

Unfortunately, by the end of the 2014-'15 season, he, like most Leafs, didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in what the Leafs were doing and to an extent, you can’t blame him.  I was sometimes critical of Kessel during his time here—but mostly because I wondered about his overall dedication when he sometimes declined to play for Team U.S.A. at the World championships at the end of the regular season. A lot of other NHLers players were also banged up and tired and they still played. Maybe that wasn’t fair on my part, I don’t know.

Regardless, he seems to be a central figure in what the Penguins are doing.  Whether they make it to the finals, we’ll see. But I’m sort of pulling for him. Are other Leaf fans, I wonder?

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Roman Polak has quietly helped the Sharks make it to the semi-finals.  He’s playing about 17 minutes a night.  We all recognized that he was a tough, team-first player during his time with the Maple Leafs.  And it’s often the case that we fans don’t, however, fully appreciate his kind of gritty player until they have an opportunity to play in a situation where their “small plays” and determined effort make a difference on a good team. He’s in that environment in San Jose and appears to be thriving.  Good for him.  (Importantly, he has only accumulated three minor penalties in 12 playoff games—that’s something for a defenseman.  And two of those penalties meant nothing—they were off-setting roughing penalties at the end of a playoff game against Nashville.)

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A different type of player but playing a similar kind of role in St. Louis is another recent ex-Leaf a lot of us appreciated, Carl Gunnarsson.  Gunner was a steady if unspectacular (as the saying goes) rearguard for the blue and white for several years.  He never quite found the offensive game I thought he might here, but he also played through a number of injuries.  He’s been a useful addition to Ken Hitchcocks’s blueline corps—playing 17 minutes a night and still a plus player (plus 3) after two long, grueling playoff series for the Blues.

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I know this goees back a long way, but maybe the one guy who feels like the “Leaf who got away” and is still awfully good (and still in the playoffs) is Alex Steen.  We all remember him as a young player with the Leafs. (I recall a gorgeous goal he scored with Toronto on the road one year, I believe it was either in Winnipeg or Edmonton—I'm still not sure how he got the puck from his feet to his stick before tucking it upstairs…) But Cliff Fletcher traded him, along with Carlo Colaiacovo as part of the organization moving players they thought were, at the time, part of the  "entitlement” culture. That was the first of many efforts to try to “change the culture” here.

I have no idea whether Steen ever was an entitled young player here (hey, it does happen, I get it; young player can be exasperating for management who invest a lot in their development…) but he’s been a very solid, impactful all-around player for years in St. Louis. He continues to contribute for Hitchcock at both ends of the ice.  He seems like exactly the kind of consistent, committed player that Leafs are trying to attract now and build with for the future. He's 32 years of age now, but if you were able to acquire a player like Steen at, say, 27 or so, he’d be gold for this emerging roster.

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I hope we get a chance to see former Leaf Anton Stralman fight his way back from a lingering injury for the Lightning before the playoffs are over. He's played a lot of playoff games for the Rangers and Tampa over the last four seasons but he has not been able to help out in the playoffs so far this spring.

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I’ve been on and off the Alex Ovechkin bandwagon for years.  He’s such an exciting player. And I do hope he helps the Capitals win a Cup at some point.  Some of us briefly wondered about his commitment and passion two or three seasons ago, but he has demonstrated he still loves the game and plays his heart out. He deserves a better fate, in terms of playoff success.  I also appreciate the fact that this guy never misses an opportunity to represent his country. Once again, within hours of the Caps being eliminated, he was on a plane back to Russia to play in the World Championships.  Hockey will always need guys like that. The Leafs certainly do.