NEWS OF MAPLE LEAFS
Last Update:
Saturday October 23, 1999 5:31PM EST
Saturday October 23, 1999 Blackhawks pick Sullivan off waivers
The Toronto Maple Leafs whirwind of changes has blown forward Steve Sullivan to the Windy City.
The Chicago Blackhawks claimed the 25-year-old centre on waivers Saturday afternoon. Sullivan was expected to be in the lineup for the 'Hawks Saturday night when they faced the Detroit Red Wings.
"I would love to stay and play here," said Sullivan, who was in the awkward position of skating with the Leafs in their morning workout at the Air Canada Centre in preparation for their game against the Montreal Canadiens Saturday night.
Sullivan didn't know at that time how much longer he would be a Leaf.
Not long, as it turned out.
"It's been tough," he said.
The Leafs had to put a player from their 20-man protected roster on waivers after they signed free agent forward Dmitri Khristich Thursday and Sullivan was the odd-man out.
Sullivan is the fourth Leaf to hit the road since the beginning of the season, along with forwards Frederik Modin and Derek King and defenceman Sylvain Cote. You have to wonder if that many changes so quickly will affect the strong team chemstry which helped carry the Leafs to the Eastern Conference final last year.
Khristich, meanwhile, will make his debut with the Leafs Saturday night. He's been skating on a left wing on a line with Nik Antropov at centre and Mike Johnson on the right.
"I'm excited about getting back to the action," said the 30-year-old Khristich, who will wear number 19 for the Leafs. "I'm looking forward to playing well. I don't have many expectations. Just go out and play well."
Thursday October 21, 1999 Sullivan on waivers after Khristich joins Leafs
Steve Sullivan, affectionately known as the Timmins Tornado, figures on being blown out of town after being placed on waivers by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"Hopefully, I'll get picked up and start fresh somewhere else," Sullivan said Thursday after what might have been his last practice with the Leafs.
Somebody on the active roster had to go on waivers, as per league requirement, after the signing of former Boston star Dmitri Khristich to a deal that would be worth more than $10 million US if it lasts through a fourth-year club option. Sullivan was being used sparingly, hadn't earned a point, and his 155 pounds didn't suit GM-coach Pat Quinn's intention of making the Leafs bigger.
Sullivan won't be going anywhere if none of the other 27 NHL teams scoop him up by noon Saturday. But a team source said he expected the fiery winger, 25, who has been with Toronto for 2 1/2 years and scored 20 goals last season, to be picked up.
Khristich, 30, lands with his fourth NHL club after a well-publicized contract battle with the Bruins, for whom he scored 29 goals last season. Boston GM Harry Sinden refused to pay the $2.8 million US the Ukrainian forward was awarded by an arbitrator in August, making Khristich a free agent.
The Bruins retained matching rights if any club signed him for 80 per cent or less of the $2.8 million. The Leafs sent Boston a second-round 2000 entry draft pick for those rights.
Khristich will get $850,000 US this season, $2.5 million for each of the second and third years, and $2.75 million for a fourth year, at the club's option. He'll also receive signing bonuses of $750,000 and $700,000 to be paid over the next two years, plus $300,000 if a fourth year kicks in.
"I'm looking forward to getting back in the NHL," said Khristich, who has been working out with a team in Kiev.
His addition brings to nine the number of Europeans on Toronto's 23-man roster.
"It really didn't matter," he replied when asked if the presence of five Russians in the Leafs' dressing room prompted him to opt for Toronto. "It's nice just to see faces I know. They don't have to be Russians."
If Sullivan goes, the Leafs will have 11 Canadians -- fewer than any other Canadian NHL team.
While Quinn admitted that he never would have imagined during his playing days in the 1960s and 1970s that the Leafs would employ this many Europeans, he says he's adapting to changing times.
"You always want to have the best players, regardless of nationality," he said.
Sinden's knocks on Khristich included a contention the player disappeared during last year's playoffs. But Quinn didn't heed that criticism.
"There was that out there," Quinn said of the player's reputation. "But that has been, in my opinion, a bad tag."
Attempts to land Khristich intensified after captain Mats Sundin suffered a broken bone in his right ankle Oct. 9.
"He can help our hockey club," Quinn said of his new acquisition. "He's a good player.
"The team's scouting reports, even long before I got here, are solid on this guy. He looks to me like the kind of guy who can play a two-way game pretty well."
Khristich, who will wear jersey No. 19, replaced a limping Todd Warriner in practice on a line with rookie centre Nikolai Antropov and third-year pro Mike Johnson. He says he'd like to make his Toronto debut against visiting Montreal on Saturday night.
Now, after a flurry of moves that include Quinn trading Sylvain Cote to Chicago and Derek King to St. Louis, the boss is going to take a deep breath and see what happens on the ice.
"What I'd like to do right now is stop for a little bit and pull our guys together," he said. "We've had some changes involving guys who were well-liked and well-respected here and that's unsettling.
"It's hard emotionally. It creates some fear (in those who remain). It gets the wrong emotion in. We have to slow that down and see if we can do some team building now. We're going to stop (roster moves for now)."
Khristich says he would have been playing a lot sooner had teams not ignored him.
"They had some kind of collusion going on," he said. "I had a pretty good year and in a normal case if I become a free agent without compensation I think I would have been taken way before the season started."
Things were good in Boston before his contract problems started, he said.
"I was part of a team going up," he said "We had a hard-working team."
It is no mystery there is no love lost between Khristich and Sinden today. And the Bruins are winless in their opening nine games.
"They gave up on me and Byron (Dafoe) because of contracts," Khristich said. "I hear the guys and the coach are not happy with management doing this kind of stuff to the team, and they are not going to pay the price to win.
"But that's their stuff. I'm out of there now."
Teams with the fewest number of points -- Boston and Buffalo today -- get first shot at players placed on waivers. Atlanta would pass if their turn came up to take Sullivan and his $875,000 US salary.
"At this time, it doesn't make sense for us," said Thrashers GM Don Waddell.
Thursday October 21, 1999 Leafs obtain rights to Khristich
Dmitri Khristich practised with the Toronto Maple Leafs today, wearing a helmet with No. 19 on the back, after agreeing to a contract valued at more than $10 million US if it runs its four-year course.
The deal followed an announcement by the Leafs that they had obtained from the Boston Bruins the rights to match Khristich's August arbitration award of a $2.8-million US salary for 1999-2000 in exchange for a second-round 2000 entry draft pick.
Khristich, 30, a Ukrainian, scored 29 goals for the Bruins last season and he has 225 in 627 career NHL games.
He'd been without a team since the Bruins exercised their right to walk away from the arbitration ruling, making Khristich a free agent. Boston retained the right to match any offer less than 80 per cent of the arbitrator's decision.
Toronto will pay the Ukrainian forward $850,000 this season plus bonuses worth $750,000 and $700,000 to be paid over the next two years. His base salary will be $2.5 million for the second and third years, and $2.75 million plus a $300,000 signing bonus if the Leafs pick up a an additional year at their option.
Making room on their roster, the Leafs traded veteran left-winger Derek King to the St. Louis Blues late Wednesday.
Toronto also placed forward Steve Sullivan on waivers today, meaning he will be available to other NHL teams for 48 hours. If unclaimed, Sullivan, who signed a new two-year contract in the off-season, will remain with the Leafs.
But the native of Timmins, Ont., said he'd welcome going to another team.
"Hopefully I'll get picked up and start fresh somewhere else," he said.
Thursday October 21, 1999 Leafs deal Derek King to Blues
The Toronto Maple Leafs traded veteran forward Derek King to the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night.
In return, Toronto gets defenceman Tyler Harlton and future considerations. The 23-year-old Harlton will report to the Leafs' AHL farm team in St. John's, Nfld.
"This is in the best interest of us and Derek," said Leafs GM-coach Pat Quinn. "This is a move that made sense. St. Louis approached us, probably as a result of Geoff Courtnall's injury."
Courtnall, who missed 41/2 months last season with a concussion, suffered another concussion Saturday during the Blues' 4-2 victory over Toronto. Leafs defenceman Bryan Berard elbowed the 37-year-old left-winger on the chin, drawing a two-game suspension.
Courtnall is pondering retirement.
In King, the Blues get a 15-year NHL veteran who had 24 goals and 28 assists for the Leafs last season. Toronto has found itself with a glut of forwards this year and King played in just three of the team's first nine games.
Quinn said the Leafs will play part of King's $1.8 million US salary, but wouldn't say how much. He did say the main motivation for the trade was not to dump salary, but rather to keep the Leafs near the 23-man roster limit.
Harlton is six-foot-two and 212 pounds. He spent most of last season with Worcester in the AHL, scoring two goals and adding five assists in 58 games.
The native of Pense, Sask., was drafted 94th overall in 1994.
"Scouts think he might have a chance at making it," Quinn said, emphasizing the word "might."
Wednesday October 20, 1999 Leafs brass eyes Cup run
A subtle change has taken place in the Maple Leafs front office. It's not the kind of thing that requires a news conference. It's simply a change in approach.
The people in the team's upper echelon really believe the Leafs can win the Stanley Cup this season.
For public consumption, they've always said they felt that way. But that is just part of the business. The difference is that now, after watching the way NHL Eastern Conference has unfolded and seeing their own team play for three weeks, they really believe it.
The first premise is any team which can get to the Stanley Cup final has a serious chance. In a best-of-seven series with a goalie like Curtis Joseph, you don't have to be the better team to win the Cup. You just have to be close enough to let the goaltender make the difference.
So the Leafs' task, therefore, is to emerge as the best team in the Eastern Conference, and the people in the front office see no reason they can't do that.
The Philadelphia Flyers are in their usual disarray; the New Jersey Devils have won just one playoff series since 1994; the Pittsburgh Penguins don't have the depth; the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins haven't won a game this season. Other teams, such as the Florida Panthers, New York Rangers, Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes are all dark horses.
So the attitude in the Maple Leafs front office is not that their team is favoured to emerge from the East, but that for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, it has a realistic chance of doing so.
Right now, there is not a single Eastern team that can point to its lineup and say, "We wouldn't have any trouble handling the Leafs."
A major reason for this is the emergence of some young players, especially Tomas Kaberle and Danny Markov. No team in hockey has two young defencemen of this calibre. In fact, some franchises are born and die without ever seeing two young defencemen with this much talent. In the National Hockey League, defence is the toughest position to fill. You can see it when national teams are selected. Goaltenders are easy to find and forwards are plentiful. But defencemen? There never seems to be enough of them.
Yet Markov and Kaberle are poised and capable. They can play in any situation and by doing so, elevate the play of the other defencemen.
They're certainly not the only reason the Leafs are a solid team. But at the start of last season, the impact to be made by Mats Sundin and Curtis Joseph, combined with the coaching of Pat Quinn was expected. What was relatively unexpected was the emergence of two top-notch NHL defencemen in such a short time.
Both Kaberle and Markov looked good last season, and this year, they've proved that it was not a fluke. Instead, it appears to have been merely the first step in careers that are destined to be memorable.
Add that to the fact Alyn McCauley has proved that if he can stay healthy, he is as solid a player as there is at his age, and the Leafs are in good shape.
It seems what the local left-wing broadsheet referred to as a "bare cupboard" when Cliff Fletcher left wasn't so bare after all. And let us not forget Anders Hedberg's discovery of Nikolai Antropov.
But despite all this, the Leafs still need some help to evolve into a true NHL power. They still need a checking line that can shut down the opposition's big guns. They need a bit more firepower from the left side.
But no longer is this a team trying to plug gaping holes. Instead, it's a matter of fine tuning. Dmitri Khristich is not the answer. He plays only when it suits him and usually it is not in the playoffs.
But there are -- and will be as the season goes on -- other players out there to help polish some of the Leafs' rough edges. And that is the way the front office is looking at it now.
The Leafs no longer see themselves a team in the building process. They now see themselves as a team that can make a run at the big prize this year.
And that is what they intend to do.
Wednesday October 20, 1999 Berard Suspended 2 games
Defenseman Bryan Berard of the Toronto Maple Leafs was suspended for two games by the NHL on Tuesday for his hit to the head of St. Louis left wing Geoff Courtnall.
The hit occurred at 18:54 of the second period of last Saturday's game. No penalty was called on the play.
Berard was also ordered to forfeit two games' pay, or $17,187.50. The money goes to the Players Emergency Assistance Fund.
The hit "was unnecessary and inappropriate," Colin Campbell, the league's director of hockey operations, said in a statement.
Berard, who has played in all eight games this season with two assists and seven penalty minutes, must sit out Wednesday night's game against Carolina and Saturday's game against Montreal.
Monday October 11, 1999 Leafs lose Sundin to broken ankle
The Toronto Maple Leafs will discover over the next six weeks just what kind of a team they really are.
The Leafs, who started this year with three straight wins after making it conference finals last season, have lost team captain Mats Sundin with a broken right ankle. The veteran centre was injured Saturday in a game against Ottawa and is expected to be gone for at least 1 1/2 months.
The team got the news Thanksgiving Monday shortly before wasting a 2-1 third-period lead en route to a 4-2 loss to the previously winless Nashville Predators.
Linemate Steve Thomas called the injury a "big loss" to the Leafs.
"He's one of the best players in the world," Thomas said. "Each and every guy is going to have to put out an effort like they never have."
Head coach and GM Pat Quinn echoed that sentiment.
"We know he's our best player, but we still have to play the games. Hopefully, we'll still be a very competitive hockey club."
Quinn said Nikolai Antropov, the Leafs' No. 1 pick in the 1998 draft, will be called up from St. John's of the AHL.
"We may as well give him a try," said Quinn. "He played a lot with Thomas (in pre-season) so that may be a real possibility."
Todd Warriner filled in for Sundin on the Leafs' top line Monday.
Sundin, who was leading the Leafs in scoring with three goals and four assists, was hopeful he would be back in action sooner than six weeks.
"Worst case, I guess it's six weeks," Sundin said. "I hope it's shorter.
"I'll be able to work out. I rode the bike (Monday) morning and that didn't bother me.
"If there had been any movement in the leg immediately after the injury, they would have had to do surgery. I think I've been fortunate. I haven't had any bad injuries, so I hope this is the one time it happens."
Leafs team physician Dr. Michael Clarfield said Sundin shouldn't have any difficulty in recovering from the injury.
"There's no other ligament damaged and (the ankle) is not swollen, so we think he'll come back in good shape," Clarfield said.
Sundin, 28, was injured when he took a shot off the ankle.
"I'm surprised by it," he said. "It was on a 3-on-2 and (Magnus) Arvedsson was going wide and I went wide with him.
"He dropped a pass and I stopped. I think it was (Marian) Hossa, who took a one-timer."
It was initially thought Sundin had only bruised the foot, but he couldn't practise Sunday because of the pain and had a series of X-rays Monday that revealed the undisplaced fracture.
The injury ended Sundin's 259-game played streak, which had been the second-longest active streak in the NHL.
"There's a first for everybody. I've been fortunate in my career not to get hurt so we'll have to see."
Saturday October 9, 1999 Leafs re-sign Yushkevich; trade Cote
The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed restricted free agent defenceman Dimitri Yushkevich to a multi-year deal.
To make room on their roster, the Leafs then traded veteran defenceman Sylvain Cote to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for a second-round pick in the 2001 entry draft and another conditional draft pick.
Yushkevich, 27, missed all of training camp and the Leafs' first three regular season games before finally reaching agreement. The Russian blue-liner was a key cog in the Leafs' march to the Eastern Conference final in last spring's playoffs.
The seven-year veteran had six goals, 22 assists, 88 penalty minutes and was plus--25 in 78 games last season. The hard-hitting Yushkevich was also an important influence in the development of fellow Russian defenceman Daniil Markov.
The Leafs were looking to cut down their payroll after re-signing Yushkevich. Cote, 33, is earning $1.5 million US this season. He was acquired in March 1998 from Washington in exchange for defenceman Jeff Brown.
Cote had five goals, 24 assists and was plus--22 in 79 games last season.
The Hawks were looking for help on the blue-line while unsigned defenceman Boris Mironov remains in a contract stalemate.
Thursday October 7, 1999 Yushkevich expects trade
Dimitri Yushkevich feels his days with the Maple Leafs may be numbered.
While the rugged defenceman wants to remain in Toronto, he believes the organization he bled for in the playoffs last spring is looking to move him.
"My true feeling is they are going to bring me back to trade me, or just trade me," Yushkevich said from his Philadelphia-area home yesterday.
"What they tell me is that they will try to change their roster, try to make some deals. I think some guys want to keep me in the organization."
It is believed Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn wants to trade Yushkevich. Quinn was peeved at the defenceman's public threat last week to go back to Europe, following agent Mark Gandler's contention that the Leafs played favourites in signing Bryan Berard first.
Matter of interpretation
Yushkevich refused to comment on that issue.
"I don't want to say anything now that would put me against the team," Yushkevich said. "I think they have interpreted everything I have said the way they want.
"It seems like the fans and reporters in Toronto want me back. But for some reason, the (Leafs) feels some sort of need to protect themselves against the fans, so they have been using everything I've said against me.
Quinn fired some shots back at Yushkevich on Tuesday, wondering out loud whether Yushkevich's stellar 1998-99 season stemmed from him being in the final year of his contract.
"(Quinn) is a very good coach," Yushkevich said. "I know that he knows why I play hard -- to win. Last season we had so many meetings, he should know that.
"I play hard not because I was in the last year of my contract (nor) because I like the coaches. I have played hard the past three seasons. Last year, he helped me get better and I appreciate that."
Yushkevich virtually has agreed to a three-year, $5.85-million US contract. But in order to finalize the deal the Leafs have to clear a spot on the roster.
Quinn can afford to take his time because of the Leafs' strong start and the fact they save about $7,000 US each day Yushkevich is off the roster.
Furthermore, most NHL general managers like to see how their teams perform through 10 games before making any major moves.
Quinn agreed that is usually the standard.
"But there are exceptions," he said. "We traded (Mathieu Schneider) for (Alexander) Karpovtsev two games into last season."
In the meantime, Yushkevich is working out twice daily -- once on the ice and once in the weight room -- hoping for an early resolution to this ugly mess.
"I'm trying not to concentrate on this situation because it's frustrating," said Yushkevich, who played seven games in Russia before returning to North America last week. "I feel I've done everything I can."
Friday October 1, 1999 Leafs trade Modin to Tampa
Left-winger Fredrik Modin was traded by the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Tampa Bay Lightning for defenceman Cory Cross and a 2001 seventh-round entry draft selection Friday.
Modin, 24, is beginning his fourth NHL season. The six-foot-four Swede had 31 points including 16 goals in 67 games last season on the Leafs' first line. He was dropped from the unit late last season, and would have been on the fourth line had he started the season with Toronto.
Cross, 28, who re-signed Thursday with Tampa Bay, had 18 points including two goals in 67 games with the Lightning last season. He'd been with the Lightning since 1993. The six-foot-five native of Lloydminster, Alta., will help fill the lineup hole left in Toronto by restricted free agent Dimitri Yushkevich, who missed all of training camp while unable to reach agreement with the Leafs on a new contract.
"I'm excited about going to a contender," Cross said. "It'll be good get into a progressive, winning environment" after playing for a Tampa Bay team that finished last overall in the NHL last spring.
Cross flew to Montreal to join the Leafs for their season opener tonight against the Canadiens.