Читать книгу Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto. Life as a Maple Leafs Fan онлайн

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Though not a hard-and-fast analysis, it’s a pretty good way to grade the job NHL teams are doing drafting players. And based on the results from the past twenty years, the Maple Leafs have not done well. There has been one exception in the relatively recent past — Halifax, 2003. Canada had a good team that year, eventually finishing second, losing 3–2 to Russia in the gold medal game — a fair result from a Canadian perspective, but also if you were a Leafs fan. The rights to five players who played key roles for Canada — Brendan Bell, Carlo Colaiacovo, Matt Stajan, Kyle Wellwood, and Ian White — were owned by the club. All five eventually made the Leafs roster over the next few seasons. In fact, both Colaiacovo and White could now be called quality NHL defencemen, though they became that type of player after leaving Toronto.

Aside from that one year, there remains another one when the Leafs were well represented by two different goaltenders, but the way things eventually shook out nullified any potential benefit. It was 2006 and the two best goaltenders at the World Junior that year belonged to the Leafs: Team Canada’s Justin Pogge and Finland’s Tuukka Rask. Eventually, Rask was dealt for Andrew Raycroft, and Pogge never developed into the solid NHL goaltender the Leafs thought he might. The Leafs general manager at the time, John Ferguson Jr., gambled that Pogge was the better of the two prospects and it blew up in his face. Go figure.