Prospective Look at Toronto

Obviously, the Maple Leafs have a lot of work to do with their team. No question. So much has been made about the Leafs during this past season, you can only imagine how it's going to magnify when it draws closer and closer to the Entry Draft. Especially, since they still don't have a full-time General Manager in their possession to make all the directional decisions going forward. Oh, the decisions. So many decisions. Where could we possibly begin to dissect the team in a going forward thought? Well, let's start with what they have at the moment. Seems about right.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Nikolai Antropov	Tomas Kaberle	Vesa Toskala
Jason Blake	Pavel Kubina	Andrew Raycroft
Alex Steen	Bryan McCabe
Alexei Ponikarovsky	Ian White
Darcy Tucker	Anton Stralman
Boyd Devereaux	Carlo Colaiacovo
Jiri Tlusty
Mark Bell*

Above, in the chart, the Leafs have 16 regular players signed on for next season at an estimated cost of $40.3 million. That includes Mark Bell, who should have started serving his jail sentence in San Jose, which could very well leak into the pre-season or the season, but the dates are a little fuzzy, which could determine some more numbers. Going forward, however, we'll keep him in.

There are five contracts on that list for next season that reach or eclipse the $4 million mark, which seems pretty heavy, not to mention the six other deals that reach or eclipse the $2 million mark. It's a very heavy burden to bare, since most of those deals include a no-trade or no-movement clause. Except for Pavel Kubina, that is. It will be a case of creative management, if any of these other players move out of the system to make some room.

Then you have to pose the question, cap-wise, where is Mats Sundin going to fit, if he desires to return to the Leafs at about the same cost as last season, $5 million. It would be like dropping an anchor off the Titanic... just bringing the boat down faster.

Let's not forget about the restricted free agents, Matt Stajan and Kyle Wellwood, who are both eligible for arbitration. So, let's play independent arbitrator for a moment and assign these guys their estimated value according to last season's production. Stajan, at 24, should earn about $1.2 million (Colby Armstrong/Scottie Upshall money). Wellwood, at 25, will likely get something close to the same figure as Stajan, thanks to an off-season due to injury, which will also likely result in unrestricted free agency after the deal is done. So, right there, the team needs about $2.5 million for two of the young centres to return.

So, maybe even before movement actually happens in the Leaf organization, we'll all hit Draft Day, so speculation can run amok. The Leafs currently sit with the 7th overall pick, quite a ways from the 1st overall pick, which they may covet, because of Steven Stamkos. It would truly be monumental to see the Leafs implode the team structure at the Draft (which is in Ottawa) in order to do a complete rebuild from scratch. I guess we'll all have to wait to see if the Buds can get themselves a General Manager who can pull it off in the next 6 weeks.