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Trade deadline day has come and gone and Mats Sundin remains a Leaf, much to the disappointment of many Leafs fans who seem to forget all he’s done for the team. The real problem that needs to be examined though isn’t Sundin’s refusal to leave, but the entire concept of a rental player and why the league needs to put some countermeasures in place to make “rentals” a thing of the past.

First let’s define a rental. In a rental situation, the idea is that a player going into unrestricted free agency from team X is traded away at the deadline to team Y. Then, in the summer, the player re-signs with team X. In essence, team X gets something for nothing.

There are multiple problems with this. First of all, it could technically be done multiple times. Mats Sundin for instance has voiced that he is only interested in one year contracts. That means that in theory, had he been willing to be a rental, the Leafs could have rented him out over and over again, each time gaining without loss, until they were in a position to make a good playoff run. The real problem however is that in rental situations, it is very likely that the team acquiring the rental could essentially be getting cheated. If a team tells a player about to go UFA that he’s being traded as a rental, but he’s “welcome back next year, wink wink, nudge nudge”, then that is tampering. A rental situation in which a player is traded only to return to the team that traded him reeks of tampering and (more…)

Today Mats Sundin announced that he will not waive his no-trade clause and will remain with the Maple Leafs. Sundin said, as quoted from TSN, “I have carefully considered the team’s request that I waive my no-trade clause,” Sundin said in a statement. “I have always believed I would finish my career as a Toronto Maple Leaf so the actual request was still a very difficult one for me to contemplate.”

“I have spoken to and listened to my family and those closest to me about this issue. In the end, there is no right decision in a situation like this one.”

“I cannot leave my teammates and join another NHL Club at this time. I have never believed in the concept of a rental player. It is my belief that winning the Stanley Cup is the greatest thing you can achieve in hockey but for me, in order to appreciate it you have to (more…)

Today Sundin talked to reporters about the pressure he’s been under to waive his no-trade clause. If I was Sundin I’d do two things. First I’d tweak and take out that entire crowd of reporters, and then second I’d tell the Leafs to go screw themselves. I’d be so fed up with the team, the media and the fans trying to push me out, that I’d refuse to waive my NTC out of spite and then sign with a new team next year and play the best season of my career. I can’t believe the crap this guy is getting. He’s clearly fed up with the whole issue.

Thanks to Jeff at FaceOffCircle.net for putting the video on YouTube.

The Leafs will host the 9th place Buffalo Sabres tonight at the Air Canada Centre at 7:30 in the p.m. The buds currently sit in 14th in the Conference, 2 points ahead of Tampa, and are tied with the Oilers for third worst league wide. Lately though he Leafs have been jeopardizing their lowly status, and subsequent drafting position by playing slightly above .500 for the last 10 games! Luckily for Toronto the other teams in contention for the first overall draft choice - namely L.A., Tampa and Edmonton - have also all been playing .500 or better. It would be foolish for the Leafs to expect their competition to play this well for the remainder of the season, so in the name of drafting, Toronto needs to quit while they’re behind!

Buffalo currently sits in 9th place in the East, sharing 66 points with 8th place Philly and 7th place Boston. The Sabres should be out for blood tonight hoping to leap from at least one of those two teams, which bodes well for the Leafs who after winning two, are due for another less.

According to the team Andrew Raycroft is sick and Scott Clemenson will be coming up to take his place. In our opinion Vesa Toskala should be the one getting the night off. Clemenson can still ride the pine and Raycroft can sweat off his cold flailing around the net pretending to be a goalie. Everybody wins!

Introducing the LeafsAreTrash.com Guarunteed Loss Program!

I’m so confident that the Leafs are going to lose tonight, I’ll guarantee it! Tonight will be the first night of the LeafsAreTrash.com Guaranteed Loss Nights program where I’ll guarantee losses and give out a prize if the Leafs foil my prediction. The prizes will be (more…)

Today was the last day of the NHL’s annual General Managers’ meeting and Cliff Fletcher left Naples, Fl with no deals made. “Maybe some seeds will have been planted, but there won’t be any deals” said Fletcher yesterday adding that talks were preliminary and no firm offers had been received.

Some fans might see this and start to panic. After all, the trade deadline is just days away and this is supposed to be Cliff’s time to shine! Shouldn’t he be saving the franchise with a flurry of trades?

Well yes, and no.

The nice thing about having Cliff Fletcher sitting behind the GM’s desk is that in a situation like this, Leafs fans should feel confident. Fletcher has a track record of being a good trade-man in the NHL and buds fans should take comfort in this.

If John Ferguson Jr. was still handling the team’s affairs, his general incompetence would make it a good time to be affraid. With Cliff making the phone calls, you can safely assume that if no deals are being made, it’s because the Silver Fox is waiting for the right offers and is unwilling to liquidate the team for bargain basement prices.

That really is the key. While a less experienced General Manager might have come into this situation and started pulling the trigger on whatever deal he could - something some fans would like - Cliff knows better. He isn’t going to sell (more…)

After reading Sean’s post on Down Goes Brown about the rampant speculation going on over what some players contracts actually say, it strikes me that things would be a lot simpler if the National Hockey League simply required that all contracts signed between players and teams be disclosed to any interested fans and media.

It would be as simple as a scan of each players contract being uploaded in PDF format to a publicly accessible database on the internet. That way when people wanted to know wether or not Tomas Kaberle’s NTC would expire if the Leafs miss the playoffs this year, they could simply browse to Kaberle’s contract, open it up and read the section outlining his NTC.

The costs associated with having someone scan some paper wouldn’t be particularly high and it would save the massive ammouns of crap that go around about who’s contract says what and who can and can’t be dealt, etc.

If the players’ salaries in dollar ammount are already known to the media, what would be the harm in making the entire details (more…)

Deadline time is approaching and the media is ablaze over what will happen to players in regards to waiving their NMC’s or NTC’s. The problem is they rarely, if ever, take the time to explain the terms. I’ve had a few people ask me what each one means and what the differences are so I thought I’d address that here.

No-Trade Clause (NTC):

No-trade clauses protect players from being moved through trade to another team without their consent. Examples of Leafs holding such contracts are Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle and Darcy Tucker. For any of these players to be traded, they have to consent to waiving the clause in their contract. The waiving of an NTC is not a black or white decision, as players have the right to (more…)

Unfortunately the Photoshop contest did not receive nearly enough entries to be completed. We thank all those who did enter but we think the reason for the lack of activity was that it just asked for too much from our readers. We still want to give away that $40 shop.NHL.com gift card though, so we’re having a new, easier contest!

The contest opens today and all you’ve got to do to be entered is leave a comment on any blog post. Every comment you leave will gain you an entry into the hat with no limit on the number of times you comment before the contest ends. However the comments must be worthwhile and not just single words or obvious filler to simply gain an entry.
We’re looking for opinions, facts, news, anything you want to say. Agree or disagree with us? Leave a comment! You could win!

Full rules are available on the Contest Page.

On Monday night TSN reported that Cliff Fletcher and Islanders GM Garth Snow had discussed a deal that would involve Jason Blake and Bryan McCabe being moved to Long Island. Apparently McCabe is willing to wave his NMC for a trade with the Islanders. As it stands, Snow has declined the offer due to the return Fletcher has asked being too high.

Cliff needs to start budging on his end big time. Dumping McCabe’s monstrous salary would be a Godsend for the Leafs, and should allow Fletcher to accept less in return than if McCabe was making reasonable money. While there isn’t any point in trading the pair if the return would be a pittance, any reasonable return should be taken if it means the Leafs can shed those two players and free up valuable cap space.

Since apparently the Islanders are (more…)

It seems like media and fans alike have come together and decided that Mats Sundin’s welcome on this team has run out. From news articles, to message boards, to talk at the bar, everywhere you go you hear it. Mats Sundin is so valuable on the trade market that there is no excuse for Cliff Fletcher not finding a way to convince him to waive his NTC. What people don’t ever think of is that Sundin is without question the backbone of the team, and if he’s gone, there will be nothing to hold up the rest of the team during the rebuilding stages, which might be the worst possible situation to bring budding talent into.

People love the idea of Sundin to Detroit for a good young player and maybe a good pick, or Sundin to Anaheim for Edmonton’s first round pick, which should be a very good one. So let’s say it happens and when all is said and done, the Leafs will take home a good young prospect. Draft day comes around and we add a couple more talented aspiring NHL’ers onto the future roster.

What happens next year?

When it comes to goalies, everyone understands that young talent need someone with experience to mentor them. Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, the same is true for players. If Sundin hangs up the blue and white there will be no one left on this team capable of being the role model that a team made up of young up-and-comers needs to (more…)