If Brian Burke Cleans House, Who Will Skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

For many Leaf fans, there are only two goals for remainder of this season:

1.    Drop as low as possible in standings to maximize the draft pick.

2.    Give lots of playing time to the prospects to develop them and see who might be the right players to build around

The dream scenario for these fans is to have GM Brian Burke truly clean house leading to the deadline, adding draft picks and prospects for veterans. 

Unfortunately it is unlikely that he will be this aggressive, but let’s imagine he is and succeeds in finding deals. 

Let’s envisage a scenario where Blake, Antropov, Ponikarovsky, are all dealt, along with Kubina and Toskala.  What happens to the Leafs for the remainder of the year?  Could they even field a team?

Well, they wouldn’t be good, but yes, they could, and it would indeed give a real chance for younger players to thrive—or learn a lot. 

At forward, Leafs would have an extraordinarily weak line-up of young skaters led by Stajan, Grabovski, Stempeniak, and Williams.  Hagman, May, and Moore would be the vets, and they would very likely have picked up another in all of the deals.  They would be supplemented by Williams, Mitchell, Kulemin, Tlusty, and a young prospect they pick up in the deals. 

Accounting for injuries and bench strength, Leafs would have Mayers as well.  And on the farm, they have two scorers they would want to bring up right away and give ice time—Stapleton and Newbury, who are both at a point-a-game pace with the Marlies. 

If and as these forwards slumped or weren’t giving full efforts, they would have Bates Battaglia begging for another breath of NHL air, Deveaux (who has nine goals in 15 games with the Marlies), and Hamilton (who they traded Earl for).  I’m assuming they let Bell go to another team through waivers.

On defense, they would be forced to give Stralman some good ice time, while White and Schenn continue to get as many minutes as they can handle.

Finally in goal, Pogge would be getting the big majority of starts unless he completely falters.  There’s a good chance Leafs pick up Legace or another available back-up by deadline who would be there is Pogge needs the help.

Would this be a good team?  Of course not, but it would certainly fulfill the goals of so many Leafs fans, and it would be fun to watch a truly young Leaf team skate and show what some of the future may bring.