Takin' a T/O With BT: Fabian Brunnstrom—The Swede Stops in Dallas

Fabian Brunnstrom is now a Dallas Star.

All I have to say is, thank God I didn’t lose any sleep over this.

To be completely honest, the fact that the Maple Leafs were in the middle of this “hunt for the next Daniel Alfredsson” did little to excite me—it actually bothered me.

Maybe before they go out and try to fix the roster that hasn’t worked for three years, it might be a good idea to have a permanent solution at the helm, not some one-year fill-in (I’m looking at you, Dave Nonis).

Yes, the kid has excellent potential (according to the people in Sweden), yes, he’s put up some fairly decent numbers in a European men’s league (which could or could not translate into NHL production), and yes, we’ve all seen his YouTube clips.

But with the state the Leafs are in right now, I honestly think that signing Brunnstrom would have done more harm than good.

It was said that one of Brunnstrom’s reasons for potentially signing with the Leafs would have been that there was a solid foundation for the future in place.

Well, if “solid foundation” is Swedish for “firing your coach the day before the ‘big announcement’ and only having ‘preliminary’ talks with teams about discussing your own opening at General Manager with their current GM,” then yes, there is a solid foundation here, and I’m completely baffled about why there isn’t a news conference happening to introduce our next savior.

Translation issues aside, it’s completely reasonable for a player to avoid “putting his fingers on the train wreck,” so to speak, as before you can chance the roster, you have to institute some continuity behind the scenes with the man making it.

The fact that he passed on the Leafs because they lacked a foundation could even help the blue and white.

Because the Leafs have no solid future at the general manager’s position OR head coach, then it’s impossible to determine if this is a team that would utilize Brunnstrom to his full abilities—he very well could have become just another hit on the cap for the next two years.

At this point, Brunnstrom would have been Cliff Fletcher’s guy. As soon as his replacement is found, Fletch is out of here—meaning that he would have left the team with a newly-signed Swedish “Superstar,” who (as painful as this might sound) may not fit into the new GM’s plan for this team.

Not only would Brunnstrom then be stuck on a team that may not use him correctly, but if he bombed, then that’s a headache the new GM may never have wanted to risk.

Let's say he signed with the Leafs on Thursday, you would then have to deal with the cloud of attitude that’s already hanging over this team.

Looking at the roster top to bottom, it’s hard to find a player who hasn’t heard his name rumored to be switching addresses.

Even more discouraging is that the rare finds that aren’t front and centre in those rumors have become disgruntled with the lack of direction that has overtaken the franchise. They have started to wish their names were breaking onto the “Top Ten Toronto Maple Leafs to Get Bought-Out or Traded” lists making it around message boards lately.

Even if the Leafs were willing to grant every player on this roster his freedom, it’s financially impossible for them to buy-out or trade all of the bad contracts that they’ve accumulated over the past three years.

If Toronto were to actually attempt this, it would eat up a large portion of the cap, leaving them enough room to sign the Bruno St. Jacques and Jason Strudwicks of the world to fill out their defense, and a hell of a lot of Krys Barchs and Brad Winchesters to fill out the forward lines.

With that in mind, imagine if you will, that you’re Jason Blake or Darcy Tucker. The team doesn’t buy you out, but in the meantime they went and found a replacement for you.

Needless to say you, an established NHL veteran, are now spending your hard-earned playing time skating behind a kid who quit hockey once to pursue his dream of being a rock star, and somehow meandered his team on to the NHL radar after one season in the Swedish Elite League.

Wouldn’t that just be a cheery dressing room to walk into?

In all honesty however, if this team were in any other market in the NHL, the fans wouldn’t show up, players wouldn’t sign here, and Gary Bettman would have his dream of having a team in Kansas City.

Hell, if this were the NBA, the ownership of the team would’ve changed three times by now, and Oklahoma City would be tossing wads of $100s around to try and move the team there overnight.

Side note: To the people of Kansas City and Oklahoma, I’m not saying anything against your city. I’m sure they’re both very nice places, and that one day I’ll visit them. However, for all intensive purposes (in this article), they should be seen with about as much fondness as that scene with Kathy Bates in the hot tub in About Schmidt.

But the fact is, is that it’s Toronto. For some strange reason, a storied franchise has been run into the ground by penny-pushing management, and when you hear the words “It’s down to Toronto, Dallas, Detroit, Vancouver, and Montreal,” the only thing you can think of is “why Toronto? We’re a mess.”

So to Fabian Brunnstrom, here’s hoping you have a long, successful NHL career, and that you can outscore Lubos Bartecko this year.

Hey, maybe you can even have your name engraved on the Stanley Cup at one point. Because unless you’re a lot better than anyone knows about, you’re going to have a hard time grabbing any scoring related hardware while Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin reside in North America.

To the Dallas Stars and their fans, I'm hoping you picked up a good one. Here's hoping that Brunnstrom has a fantastic career and doesn't turn out to be one of those third line guys that just mull around the NHL—kind of like eighteen of the players on the Leafs' roster.

To the Toronto Maple Leafs, here’s hoping the ACC doesn’t get renamed the “Loony Bin” in the next few years.

God knows we've given the rest of the league enough fodder to have that happen already.