This Makes me Want to Puke

[lapniappe]

Why am i not surprised?
_______________________

Frugal start for Toronto

Agents pepper the Leafs with sales pitches but the NHL club isn't buying just yet


By MIKE ZEISBERGER -- Toronto Sun

The door remained tightly sealed on the Maple Leafs' bank vault yesterday.

On the first day of the NHL's annual free-agent auction, enthusiastic agents peppered Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn and assistant GM Mike Penny with sales pitches of how their respective clients were the perfect ingredients needed to catapult the blue-and-white over the top.

And at the end of each conversation, the Leafs braintrust responded with the same answer.

No sale.

"The price is not right at this point," Penny said. "We had lots of calls come in trying to sell, but we are not buying.

"Frugality is the name of the day."

With the Leafs down to just three seasoned veterans on the blue line -- Aki Berg, Tomas Kaberle and Bryan McCabe, who is mulling over Toronto's qualifying offer -- defence continues to be the focus.

And while names such as Ken Klee, Bryan Marchment, Greg de Vries and Oleg Tverdovsky were discussed, Penny dismissed the notion that the Leafs will enter into the Sergei Fedorov sweepstakes given the current market conditions.

"We have not even talked about him," Penny said, reacting to comments from the Fedorov camp that the gifted Russian forward would not mind ending up in Toronto.

"Our priority is to fix the blue line. We've already got gifted players like Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan, Nik Antropov and Alex Mogilny up front. If someone wants to give us $40 million to sign the guy, well, that's a different story."

Fedorov turned down a four-year, $40-million US deal tabled by the Detroit Red Wings earlier this year, opting to become an unrestricted free agent instead.

With Fedorov out of the mix, the Wings are eyeing Derian Hatcher, the jewel among available defencemen. The Leafs were not among those teams said to have inquired about Hatcher yesterday

Talks between the Leafs and Rick Curran, the agent for Glen Wesley, remain ongoing. Curran sent a fax out to the various NHL teams Monday stating that the likes of Wesley, Joe Nieuwendyk and former Leaf Shayne Corson were available, but insiders claim Wesley's likely destinations remain Toronto or Carolina.

Like most teams the Leafs stuck to their guns and proved to be patient instead of embarking on a spending spree as the free agency period arrived at 12:01 yesterday morning.

"The biggest difference is that the agents are calling the teams this time around," Penny said. "There is a lot of kicking tires going on."

Since Robert Svehla has not signed retirement papers, the Leafs are handcuffed by the $4-million option they picked up on the veteran defenceman.

The Leafs could attempt to get the league to place Svehla on the voluntary retirement list, but Penny said such a move could not be made until training camp, at the earliest.

"We have to go forward right now,"Penny said. "We have no more (money) to give him."

Meanwhile the search for the man to take over Quinn's GM portfolio is under way.

There is a good chance that John Ferguson Jr., the St. Louis Blues director of hockey operations, will meet with Leafs officials later this week.

"I can't comment on the situation," Ferguson Jr. said.

[Gerard]

lappi said:

"Our priority is to fix the blue line."

Did he say which year?? So much for having Q not make decisions. This has got his fingerprints all over it. I know this year is diff., and the UFA's are in for a shock, but I still think this just opens the door for conservatism to rule.

[tml2002]

While fixing the blue line is a big priority, so is the good of the team. Quinn will address our blue line problem, just maybe not the way the fans want him to.

Fans want Hatcher. Hatcher will cost upwards of 6 and 7 mil. Fans want Fedorov. Fedorov will cost upwards of 10 mil. Id love to have these guys, but its not going to happen. And its not because Quinn is incompitent and cant do his job.

Quinn has worked hard over the past few years to make sure this team would be ready for the summer of 2004, and the expirment of the CBA. Why would he ruin all that hard work, by bringing in long, big, contracts that he has worked so hard to keep out of here?

A salary cap will no doubt be implemented. There are going to be teams like the Rangers, who have many big, long salarys, and in order to get under the cap, they will have to buy these contracts out. Whats going to happen to teams not able to get under the cap? Every game played over the cap will be forfeited by the team over the cap.

Quinn has done a great job here, and has done a great job keeping us in a great position for the CBA change. Im glad hes not risking it for one shot at the cup. And really thats all it is. One shot. No matter who you sign, who you trade for, you still only have a 1/30 chance at winning hte cup. Teams like Detroit, the Rangers, and Anaheim have proven that.

This cap is going to likely IMO be around 45 mil. Sundin's contract is 9 mil. Own Nolan makes what, 5 mil? What if we were to sign Hatcher for 6. Then thats practically half our payroll on three players. That doesnt make for a very competitive team. And theres no way we would be able to move those contracts to other teams, because each team will have its own large contracts to take care of.

[lapniappe]

it's not that

it's that they aren't going after anyone.

i doubt that that the few defensemen after hatcher (de vries, sweeny, klee (i know tom, i KNOW lol ), weasley) want 7.5 ish dollars.

i can live with out hatcher
i can live without federov (because in a non CBA world, chances are this wouldn't even be an issue. he probably still would have turned down detroit; but would have been in new york already)

i can even handle living without kariya (again; in a non CBA world; he'd be in Anahiem or New York).

it's the fact that they aren't doing ANYTHING.
maybe that will change after they sign Antropov et.al, but they keep going but ....svhela...

and that gets me ticked off. and svhela what? svhela's retired, and quite frankly, since he's qualifed if he did come back, quinn could say; no, sorry, i replaced you. you can not play. you didn't want to play while the team was how it was (which is what i think is part of the reason he "retired"), so he can't play now when the team is good. (hopefully).

[MapleBud]

I had a feeling this was going to be pointed out soon.

All I have to say is........RELAX. If you haven't noticed, there is only 1 team that has made a move to sign a FA, and that is Philly. I'm also not overly impressed by their move considering they still haven't upgraded their goaltending position.

Nobody is making any quick moves, and I beleive that is because all the GM's are waiting for someone else to make the first move and set the market. Fiscal responsibility is the name of the game for this season, and it's only a matter of time before someone makes the first move. Until that time, the Leafs are no farther behind anyone else in this game.

[Gerard]

Quinn is using this 4M contract w/ Svehla as his 'out'. Every clip i've seen lately of him has him saying 2 things: we're NOT gonna get the big name guys and that Svehla's stance has screwed up the Leaf's plans. He says he can't afford to do anything until this issue gets settled b/c, if he did come back, we'd be over the budget by 4M. He sounded as if the entired team's structure would collapse and we'd be penniless. He is (officially) right about the over-budget angle but I don't buy the other side/coin. This is 1-year @ 4M. Hardly the amount of money a team should be numb over. It's only July 3rd and my patience is, not surprisingly, wearing thin over this issue. Sorry to be so negative.

[tml2002]

The Leafs arent the only ones not signing anyone. No one has been quick to sign anyone, even the guys with smaller contracts. No one wants to give a player a certain amount of money, only to see the rest of them sign for much less. I really dont think the free agent signings will pick up for atleast another couple weeks. Teams are waiting to see who accepts the qualifying offers, and what will happen in the arbitration hearings.

[MapleBud]

Guess we were wrong TML. A few teams laced their skates early.

[tml2002]

Indeed we were wrong

I guess all it took was one big name signing to kick it all off.

But really, of the guys signed, who did you guys expect to come here? It was already well documented taht Hatcher would go to Detroit. I think most Leaf fans already accepted taht he wasnt coming here. Karyia was going to follow Teemu wherever he went, and there was no way Quinn was going to sign both of them. Marchant, I fully expected to end up in Edmonton again, and Letowski I didnt want in the first place. If we were going to sign Letowski, we may as well keep the more talented Jonas Hoglund, who can do the same job, only better.

Im not worried yet. There are great rumours going right now about Marchment, and Wesley. And apparently Neiwey has shown some interest in coming here.

There are still guys out there for us to get. And we will get some of them.

[MapleBud]

Oh I agree with you about there being plenty of time and no need to panic. I also didn't expect any of the big names to end up in Toronto either.

I'm sure this is likely to open the doors for the other GM's as they now have a price range to play with. If Kairya is willing to take a paycut, then there are likely others that will. The sticking point in all of this will be the length of the contract that each player is able to achieve.

I'm not worried yet, but I hope Quinn doesn't play this Svhela angle to long. We do not have what it takes to make the playoffs let alone the Stanley Cup with the defense we're utilizing now. Calling up the kids is nice, but they are prone to mistakes early in their careers.

[Mike]

In a few days when the Leafs have managed to dig a player like Bill Lindsay or another useless UFA out of a fairly stacked pile, I'll be the first one online stating sarcastically "Well shutdown the season the Leafs have the tools now" or another lame line like that. It happens every year and this year I'm 95% sure they won't disappoint.