NEWS OF MAPLE LEAFS
Last Update:
Wednesday May 31, 2000 11:33PM EST
Monday May 29 2000 Berard likely to be exposed in expansion draft
The Maple Leafs have not been given official word from the NHL yet, but they have realized there is almost no chance Bryan Berard will be exempt from the expansion draft.
Therefore, the team is planning on exposing Berard, who suffered a serious eye injury late in the season, when the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets pick from NHL rosters June 23.
Contrary to published reports which said the league had agreed to Toronto's request to exempt Berard from the proceedings, Leafs executive Bill Watters said there is no reason for the team to believe the league will take that unprecedented step.
"We have not heard from the league yet," Watters told the Toronto Star. "But based on the information we've received, we're not expecting an exemption."
The NHL is skittish about setting such a precedent.
If it were to exempt Berard from the expansion draft, the league would also be forced to exempt Trent McCleary of the Montreal Canadiens and Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers. Like Berard, both of those players suffered serious injuries that have left their hockey futures in doubt.
Monday May 29 2000 Leafs to play nine exhibition games this fall
The Toronto Maple Leafs will play nine exhibition games prior to the 2000-2001 season with stops in Calgary, Detroit, Edmonton, Hamilton and Vancouver.
The Leafs open at home against Edmonton on Thursday, Sept. 14, and end the pre-season in Hamilton on Oct. 1 against Detroit.
Toronto will play home-and-away exhibition games against Calgary, Detroit, Edmonton and Vancouver. The other visitor to the Air Canada Centre is Buffalo.
Thursday May 25 2000 Sims eyes Leafs' job
If the Maple Leafs look outside their alumni for an assistant coach, they could settle on Al Sims.
The former National Hockey League defenceman, ex-coach of the San Jose Sharks and highly regarded tutor of young players for the Nashville Predators in Milwaukee of the IHL, has come on the market.
The Predators formally announced this week they would not renew Sims' contract and he promptly fired off a resume to Toronto general manager/head coach Pat Quinn.
"I am getting into the (Leafs' employment line) a little late, but I have coached 11 years and I think my work with young players has been a positive," Sims said yesterday.
"The one thing I hadn't done until I came to Milwaukee (three years ago) was work with kids and we sent eight up to Nashville this year. It is like seeing your own sons do well."
But Sims wanted to get back in the NHL and the Predators wanted a long-term commitment.
"He was a very capable coach and you can tell he did a good job by the number of players we had (move up)," Predators general manager David Poile said.
Sims, who had a record of 118-98-30 with the Admirals and 27-47-8 with the Sharks, has a connection to Rick Ley, the Leafs' other assistant coach. Both were members of the original Hartford Whalers in 1979-80, while Sims also speaks frequently with Quinn's daughter Kalli, an executive assistant with the Predators.
As expected, most of the candidates to declare interest in replacing Alpo Suhonen as assistant have Leafs' connections, such as former winger John Anderson. His Chicago Wolves are now about to start the IHL final with the Grand Rapids Griffins, having aided the Leafs for many years by taking two or three veteran players Toronto couldn't place in St. John's.
Other Toronto/Quinn cronies who could get a shot include Rick Vaive and Glen Hanlon.
Tuesday May 16 2000 Korolev's finger needs fourth operation in '01
The fickle finger of fate continues to point to a long rehabilitation for Maple Leafs centre Igor Korolev.
Though surgery yesterday in New York on his left index finger was termed a success, he will need a fourth operation after the 2000-01 season. This all goes back to a Bobby Holik slash that shattered Korolev's finger during the 1998-99 season and has made it difficult for him to grip his stick ever since.
Dr. Charles Malone said the scar tissue from inserted screws rendered the tendon useless and he replaced the tendon yesterday with a prosthetic.
"Igor already can bend his finger and get a better grip," Korolev's agent, Mark Gandler, said last night. "The good news is, he should be able to come to training camp after about eight weeks of rehab and play all season. "But he'll have to have another surgery to remove the prosthetic and have the tendon grafted (likely with part of a knee tendon). That's three summers of dedication to play hockey."
Friday May 12 2000 Should Leafs be going for a Coffey?
Is future Hall of Famer Paul Coffey a potential solution for the Maple Leafs' woeful power play?
Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford apparently thinks so.
When the Leafs lost defenceman Bryan Berard to a career-threatening right-eye injury on March 11, gone was the power-play quarterback. Without a smooth-skating point man to move the puck up ice, the Leafs scored only two power-play goals in 12 playoff games.
Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn admitted during his state-of-the-union news conference on Wednesday that the Leafs need such a player. Enter Coffey.
Carolina's exclusive right to deal with Coffey ends July 1. The veteran defenceman becomes an unrestricted free agent at that time.
"I'm sure Paul Coffey would be high on Toronto's list," Rutherford told the Raleigh News & Observer this week. "He plays the same type of game as Berard."
Leafs officials acknowledge the similarities in the styles of Coffey and Berard. But they also are not allowed to comment on Coffey or any other player still under contract with another NHL team.
Coffey, who turns 39 on June 1, made $2.5 million US this season. The Chicago Blackhawks, who traded him to Carolina in December 1998, picked up $500,000 of that salary.
Coffey, the NHL's career leader among defencemen in points (1,527) and assists (1,131), recently spent time in the Toronto area visiting his father, who is recovering from triple bypass surgery.
While the Leafs would like to land Coffey, the Hurricanes have made re-signing winger Gary Roberts the top priority. Defenceman Sean Hill's deal also is up.
Berard's recovery in the past two months has been amazing. He has regained a small amount of sight in the eye, but doctors caution that it will be a few more months before any firm conclusions can be reached.
Meanwhile, centre Nik Antropov is to have surgery to repair the torn anterior-cruciate ligament in his right knee next Wednesday or Thursday. Antropov tore the ACL during Game 3 of the series against Ottawa.
One member of the Leafs organization who won't be taking the summer off is assistant coach Alpo Suhonen. While the Leafs would like to keep Suhonen, whose contract runs out in July, the Blackhawks are said to be interested in him as a candidate for their vacant head-coaching position.
Blackhawks manager of hockey operations Mike Smith, a former associate GM of the Leafs, would not comment on Suhonen and the Hawks coaching situation. "I'll leave that up to speculation," Smith said last night from his home in Martha's Vineyard.
As of yesterday morning, Leafs executive Bill Watters said he was not aware of any request from the Hawks for Toronto's permission to speak to Suhonen. The Leafs have said they would not impede such discussions.
Friday May 12 2000 Surgery for Nik Antropov
Toronto rookie Nik Antropov will have surgery Wednesday or Thursday to repair a torn ligament in his right knee.
Antropov tore his anterior-cruciate ligament in Game 3 of Toronto's first-round series with Ottawa.
Thursday May 11 2000 Quinn says Sundin will likely be back
Pat Quinn says he expects Mats Sundin to return as captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs next season, but he stops short of ruling out a trade.
"It's Ivory Snow -- 99 and 44-100ths that he'll be right here," Quinn said Wednesday.
Sundin failed to score a goal, earning only one assist, in six games against New Jersey before the Devils eliminated Toronto from the second round of the NHL playoffs Monday night.
During the regular season, Sundin tied for 17th in league scoring with 73 points in 73 games. He was 18th in goals with 32.
At the pay wicket, he was seventh with a $7-million US salary, which goes up to $7.5 million for 2000-2001.
His critics contend his impact on the ice should be commensurate with his salary.
"To not think of Mats in terms of one of the top guys in the league is wrong, it's dead wrong," said Quinn. "I know we all want to blame him but it's just not looking at the facts, it's not realistic."
The Devils honed in on Toronto's No. 1 player, and nobody else stepped up to fill the void, said Quinn, who was asked if Sundin was the man to lead the Leafs to the next level up the championship ladder.
"Absolutely. I don't know how long I have to stand here and say that. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this guy is a quality player, he's a quality person, he's a good captain, and he's a worthy captain for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He has been part of the last two years' success and he'll be part of us going forward."
An added comment made it clear nobody on the roster is untouchable in terms of a trade.
"The other side is, yes, you always consider, you have to consider, those things," Quinn said. "But it would have to be an awful terrific deal.
"You just don't replace physical skill and ability that easily."
Sundin said after emerging from the 1999-2000 team's final team meeting of the season that he and his teammates expected to go farther in the playoffs because they'd made it to the third round last spring and followed that with a club-record, 100-point regular season.
"It certainly is a setback from last year," he said. "It's very disappointing."
Sundin said he has no desire to go elsewhere. If criticism comes his way, he's man enough to take it. He puts more pressure on himself to perform well than fans or the media, he said.
"There is going to be heat, that's part of the game," he said of the high expectations of Leafs fans who yearn for an end to the 33-year-old championship drought. "I love playing in Toronto.
"I think I'm fully accepted. I don't think I'd be the captain (without that acceptance), but I think you have to win championships to get the real respect. That's part of pro sports."
Good days lie ahead, he suggested.
"We actually have a darn good team here. We beat all the best teams in the league all year. We had a tough couple of weeks against the Devils but, other than that, we should be very proud of what we accomplished this year."
Darcy Tucker said the Leafs "battled hard but just didn't have the gas in the tank at the end to beat New Jersey."
"They played a very physical style and we didn't hold up to it or adhere to it as much as we should have," he said. "We pushed as hard as we could but we just couldn't get through it."
The absence of injured players Bryan Berard, Yanic Perreault, Nik Antropov, Alexander Karpovtsev and Wendel Clark in the last game was a factor in the defeat, he said. Berard was lost in early March with a career-threatening eye injury.
"You look at our power play in the playoffs," Tucker said. "It didn't perform up to par mostly because of the fact we couldn't get the puck in their zone.
"All year long, Bryan did a great job of rushing the puck up and getting it in the zone. That was a huge injury for us. We score a couple of goals on the power play and we're right there. We just couldn't get the puck in the net."
To the end, the players stood up for one another.
"We've got character in that dressing room," said defenceman Dmitry Yushkevich. "Maybe we have small guys but those guys have more character than some six-foot-five and six-foot-six players.
"I like our team."
They autographed sticks and sweaters that the club has earmarked for charitable organizations.
"We're going to have a bitter taste in our mouths all summer, but we'll start a new journey in September to try for the Stanley Cup," said Tie Domi.
Roster changes are inevitable, says Garry Valk, one of the veterans who likely will be exposed in the expansion draft next month.
"Every season, due to fiscal problems management has, there's going to be changes," he said. "Dallas won the Cup last year and brought in four or five new players.
"If they can make changes, anybody can."
Quinn admits the Leafs "have some ways to go" before becoming a championship-calibre team.
Acquiring a defenceman to compensate for the loss of Berard, and finding "a big, tough, take-guys-off-their-game centre" are his priorities, he said.