Toronto Maple Leafs: A Hatred of Other Teams, or Possible Self-Loathing?

The Toronto faithful haven’t had much to cheer about for 20 or so years now, and the hatred has grown in their hearts for divisional arch rivals such as Montreal, Buffalo, and Ottawa.

Do we hate them because they’ve had success? Yes!

Do we hate them because they continually finish higher than us in the standings each year? Yes!

Do we hate them because they've had good young prospects and we’ve had mostly barren cupboards or traded off our youth? Yes!

Do we hate them mostly because we hate our own product on the ice and our past brass and their decisions? I say yes!

But things are changing.

Sure Buffalo has Tyler Myers; Montreal has P.K. Subban; and Ottawa has Jared Cowan—all certainly good prospects.

But Toronto’s stables are certainly not empty anymore.

Nazem Kadri is the first prospect that comes to most minds when talking about the Leafs and he is an exciting player with no limit on what he can bring to the table.

After the 2009/10 WJC, Jerry D’Amigo’s name crossed people's lips in Toronto as much as Kadri’s.

Toronto’s general manager Brian Burke has said he wants to build from youth, something Leafs Nation has been waiting to hear and see for sometime.

So far he is living up to his word.

Some fans of the blue and white are still wondering whether Burke made the right move giving up so much for young sniper Phil Kessel, but Burke is sticking to his guns saying, “I would still make that deal today.”

And truly there is no use crying over spilled milk.

I think Toronto fans should be happy they got the cookie that was going to be dunked in that milk.

Howard Berger of the Fan 590 said, “Mats Sundin was three times the player than Kessel will ever be.”

We’ll have to wait and see on that one and hopefully Kessel makes him eat his words!

Did Sundin contribute to winning a cup for Toronto? No.

Will Kessel? Good question.

Burke has picked up a number of young college players including Tyler Bozak, Viktor Stalberg, and Christian Hanson—all good acquisitions with bright futures.

He also picked up goalie Jonas Gustavsson, who was considered to be the best goalie outside of the NHL at the time.

As well, Burke scooped up J.S. Giguere a known mentor for young goalies along with prospect Keith Aulie while alleviating the team of Jason Blake and Vesa Toskala.

Good riddance!

In the biggest move this year, he picked up Dion Phaneuf, and Fredrick Sjostrom another move towards youth and talent.

Carl “Uzi” Gunnarsson has come through the ranks of the Leafs farm system and has shone at moments and will continue to develop into what looks like a great player.

At the trade deadline Burke dumped the underachieving overpaid forward Lee Stempniak, AHL goalie Joey MacDonald, perennial 20 goal scorer Alexei Ponikarovsky and a sixth round pick.

In return, after all was said and done the Leafs ended up with F Luca Caputi, D Chris Peluso, D Matt Jones and a fourth, fifth and two seventh-round picks.

Those late round picks have turned into players like sixth round 171st overall Pavel Datsyuk, and seventh round 210th overall pick Henrik Zetterberg, but those are truly rarities and a credit to Detroit’s scouting.

But it proves that it’s not impossible to find high caliber players late in the draft.

From the 2007/2008 roster, one player is left standing and that is Tomas Kaberle. He will most likely be moved during the draft to recover a 2010 first round pick albeit likely a late first rounder but a first none-the-less.

The house cleaning is pretty much done minus the previously mentioned Kaberle and perhaps a guy or two on the jammed backend.

This is now a whole different team, are they are a playoff-bound team or a Stanley cup contender—possibly a playoff team next year—but certainly not a cup contender, yet.

Leafs Nation can now focus its energy, not on the hatred of the other teams or of their own, but towards the future with hope and open-ended possibility.

For more Leaf and NHL talk, catch my B/R counterpart Mark "The Hard Hitter" Ritter and I while we talk hockey on “Get the Puck Out” hockey show at www.MorencySports.com every Saturday between 6-7pm EST and you can check out past shows at www.ustream.com just search "Get The Puck Out" Call in during the show and voice your opinion on the hottest topics in the NHL.