Draft Schmaft: Who Says Fletcher Can't Rebuild?

He has done it before. Even after he echoed the famous words “DRAFT SCHMAFT “ in 1996, Fletcher orchestrated a trade at the deadline in 1997 that would set the team up for success from 1999–2002.

The date was February 25^th, 1997 and the Leafs were playing through a disappointing season and were on the verge of missing the playoffs. He pulled off the unthinkable; He traded away Doug Gilmour, who was the Captain and took the team on his back during those 1993 and 1994 Stanley Cup semi final runs, and defensemen Dave Ellett to New Jersey for Alyn McCauley, Steve Sullivan and hard nosed stay at home defensemen Jason Smith. The deal turned out to be a success.

Alyn McCauley didn’t have the greatest stats with Toronto, but he turned out to be a good shutdown winger and helped carry the load during the 2002 run to the Stanley Cup semi finals when star players such as Mats Sundin and Alex Mogilny were out due to injuries. He scored 15 points in 20 playoff games that year. He was traded away in 2003 in the infamous Owen Nolan deal.

Steve Sullivan scored 20 goals for the Leafs in 1998-99 and helped them claim the fourth overall spot in the Eastern Conference and a birth in the Eastern Conference final. The Leafs put him on waivers after the 1999 season, and he enjoyed the majority of his success in Chicago and now Nashville, despite being put on injury reserve for the year. He scored 73 and 75 points with Chicago and Nashville in 2001 and 2004 and was coming off a 60 point season before being shelved due to injury.

Jason Smith was solid for Toronto from 1997–1999. Unfortunately he was traded away in 1999 to the Oilers, where he enjoyed the bulk of his success and also became the captain. He is currently the Flyers Captain and one of the reasons why they are fighting for a division crown in the Atlantic division.

The point I’m trying to make is that, even though these players no longer exist on the Leafs, Fletcher made some moves back then that would eventually set the team up for success in the coming years.

They missed the playoffs in 1997 and 1998, but the Gilmour and Ellett trade paved the way for success between 1999–2002, which included two Conference Finals appearances and a Northeast division crown in 2000.

In my previous article, I mentioned how much of a mess Fletcher has to deal with in terms of the contracts of Tucker, McCabe, Blake, Raycroft and the Mats Sundin trade rumors. If someone can clean this mess up and set the team up for rebuilding, it’s Cliff Fletcher, and one just needs to look at the 1997 trade deadline deal involving Gilmour and Ellett as further proof that it can be done.