The Second Annual What the Leafs Should (But Probably Won't) Do on July 1

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

In the off-season, NHL GM’s and other top level hockey operations executives (basically each team’s own CIA) decide on the direction that their team is going. 

Sometimes, the conversation to decide this is as simple as saying “Let’s stay the course.  Now, who’s available on the UFA/trade market to continue on that course?” 

Other times, however, you have to do a complete 180 and decide on a new operating directive.  Generally, when this is done, it’s done for one of two reasons.

The first is that, quite simply, what you did last year was an abject failure.

The second, is that you attempt to mirror the latest team that has won the Stanley Cup. 

Generally speaking, the latter concept is annoying to me.  Copying what one team did that happened to work that year is almost always the best way to end up a year behind the curve...better yet, perpetually behind the times. 

This year, however, something was made perfectly clear.

The two best teams in the NHL, the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions and 2008 Finalists Pittsburgh Penguins, and the 2009 Finalists and 2008 Stanley Cup Champions Detroit Red Wings, are made of teams who, at the top of the roster, have the highest of high-end talent.  And this talent is locked up long-term in every case.

This means that every year, any team that will make the Finals and represent their division, has to go through either Pavel Datsyuk & Henrik Zetterberg in the West, or Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in the West (let alone Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom in Washington).

So, short of blowing $25 million (almost half) of your cap on four top-tier defensemen, how do you counteract this?  You acquire similarly talented forwards.

That’s why, if I’m Brian Burke, I go against my instincts, and I sign Marian Gaborik to a long-term deal on July 1.

I know, your first thought is “Supremely talented player, way too injury-prone, he wants too much money, and seriously, he’s not as good as any of the guys you just listed other than the last two Washington guys.” 

But this is why you’re reading my column, because you know I wouldn’t say something like this without having a damn good reason for it.  And here it is.

First, the injury issue.  While it’s true that Gaborik seems to injure his groin to varying degrees every year in the fall, this spring he came out and said that the surgery he just had will forever fix the issue, and that’s not something he’s ever said.

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