I think first things first, someone needs to buy MLSE, because I don’t think a pension plan has any interest in championships.

For me the issue isn’t a winning team necessarily, as the Leafs have had a winning team in the past. The issue is centered wholly around championships and the potential to win one nearly every year, like the NHL’s benchmark franchise, your Detroit Red Wings, or like the Pens might conceivably be now that they may be headed to their third straight final.

In order to achieve this, and I can’t stress this enough, the Leafs need draft picks. They finally supposedly have decent scouts (apparently the one good thing Ferguson did) so now they need to make use of them. My favourite argument in favour of building through the draft is as follows:

Between the work stoppage of 1994 and the more recent lock-out was the era of free agency. Salaries reached new highs (remember Yashin’s 10 year, $100 million plus deal?) and there was no salary cap. But who won during this era? Detroit, New Jersey, Colorado, Dallas and Tampa Bay. Every single one of these teams got the majority of its players through drafting and trades (involving giving up players they had drafted). The free agents they added were supplemental pieces. And this happened in the free agent era of the NHL. Therefore, if it was true then, it must be more true now in this salary-capped era, where you can’t blow the bank on some so-called “super star.”

For the Leafs to be a true contender, they need to give up on this idea of being competitive in a couple of years, and they need to suck for a little while (or trade for the picks of sucky teams) and they need to develop the talent they have already drafted by pulling a Detroit / New Jersey and leaving them in the farm system for three years. This means a terrible on-ice product for the next couple of years, but it would be worth it down the road.

But Burke isn’t doing that. The Leafs are going to be in perpetual mediocrity (like they were before they went on this playoff drought) because Burke, like all other Leaf GMs before him under the OTPP, feels the pressure to make the team barely competitive. He trades picks, prospects, young players…by the time the Leafs have another first round pick they will be able to barely make the playoffs, meaning they will be tempted to trade it away at the deadline, like they used to.

Boohoo.