Searching for Steen

The Maple Leafs have a lot of reasons to be very concerned about Alex Steen.

Fortuitously for the young Swede, the fact the team is winning and suddenly is receiving gobs of goals from its blueline corps has hidden the fact that his sophomore season, thus far at least, has been a disaster.

In 14 games, he has one goal, three assists and 31 shots on goal. He has been bumped from line to line, even spending time alongside No. 1 centre Mats Sundin in an attempt to get some jump into his game.

Nothing has worked. He might have played his worst game of the season Monday against Atlanta, a contest in which he was not only again ineffective on the attack but was also giving away the puck in key areas of the ice.

One straightforward way to deal with the problem in a time-honored hockey fashion would be to send Steen to the minor-league Marlies to work on his game.

Except the Leafs can't do that, at least not without fear of losing the 22-year-old former first round pick on waivers.

One of the subtle changes contained in the new CBA, you see, was that the numbers of games needed before players had to pass through waivers en route to and from the minor leagues was changed, an alteration that particularly impacted players who signed their first entry league deals at 21 years of age or older.

Steen was 21 when he inked a deal with the Leafs in Aug., 2005, and that meant once he played 80 games he would need waivers to go to the minors.

He hit that mark five games into this season.

If he'd been signed when he was 19 or 20, he wouldn't have needed waivers to go back and forth to the minors until he'd played 160 NHL games.

That's the difference a year and a new CBA made.

Had the Leafs been aware of that which would be unfolding, they might have dealt with Steen differently coming out of camp.

But they just assumed he'd get rolling a lot sooner than this. He hasn't, and that's one of the reasons GM John Ferguson sat down with him in Tampa on Wednesday in a bid to encourage him to start playing with more aggression and fire.

That produced another pointless night, his 10th of the season an assist on the first Leaf goal of the night.

Now, like the player plucked from baseball's Rule V draft who has to stay on a major league roster all season, Steen has to be a Leaf and never a Marlie unless he were to accept a two-week conditioning stint at the Ricoh Centre.

It could be worse. Steen at $770,180 for this season is still a much better bargain than Vancouver's Ryan Kesler, who signed a $1.9 million-a-year deal with the Canucks this season after the club had to match a surprise offer sheet from Philly.

Kesler has no goals in 13 games, and even his teammates are speculating whether he's feeling the pressure of his new contract.

"I'm sure it didn't at the start but the longer this goes on, the more it must weigh on him, for sure," said Vancouver winger Matt Cooke.

Maybe the same goes for Steen, but in a different way. The Leafs might have been able to swing him to Edmonton along with Tomas Kaberle for Chris Pronger over the summer, but Ferguson didn't want to part with Steen after his strong rookie campaign.

Steen has to be feeling the expectations created by that decision. Otherwise, how to explain why he's become such an ineffective, peripheral player?

Comments

[Billie Bob]

Last year we made this observation about Steen. He was on the top line with a world class player, Sundin. Steen landed tons of ice time under Quinn. But you could see this guy was riding a high that wouldn't continue.

Our conclusions last year, and prior years were clearly supported by the recent report on the NHL over drafting European players. There are countless CHL players not in the league that are head and shoulders above Steen.

[James]

I agree that Steen has been a bust this year, but I thought he played his best game last night. He made some nice plays, though they didn't convert into goals, and he was very steady with the puck. He even showed some grit. His play has been tentative all year, but last night he finally showed some willingness to get in the game.

[Spike]

I totally agree with Billie Bobs current accessment of Steen. Pat Quinn gave the kid a ton of quality ice time with Sundin when the obvious choice was Kyle Wellood who lead the team in points per minute played last year. Steens stock and ice time was way over valued, while no where near the joke of massive cap dollars wasted on the slow, one demensional Brian McCabe. Steen is best suited to a checking role with a quality young NHL player such a Belleville Bull graduate Matt Stajan. Maurice already knows this and will integrate him accordingly in that well suited role.

[Julian]

Last night he might now have gotten an assist but the Leafs first goal was a result of a nice move by Steen and his hard drive to the net.

To suggest that there are countless CHL players head and shoulders above Steen is ridiculous. He has not been producing points but he has been working hard in every game. The points will come. I would be much more worried about an established pro like Alfredsson struggling and looking lazy than a second year pro that is working his tail off.

[Scott Main]

I often see Alex being more like his father with the Winnipeg Jets. Alex can learn alot from Mike Peca, and if he develops that style then we all should be happy with the results. There is more to hockey than putting the puck into the net.

[Big Easy]

Steen still has a lot of value on the ice. He works hard, is good in his own end and contirbutes something every night. I find it odd that Wellwood has totally fallen off the map yet gets treated as if he's all star material. There is way more upside to Steen than Welllwood.

[Wardo]

Sure - there's more to hockey than putting pucks in the net. But Steen isn't doing any of those things either.

Add the handling of Steen to the list of things Ferguson has bungled in his time with the Leafs. Specifically - not trading him for Pronger.

The thing about Steen is, and was, is at the time the deal went down, everything about Steen was just potential, meaning he hadn't done anything yet. Pronger will be a Hall of Fame defenseman. You trade the unproven prospect for the Hall of Fame player every single time if you get the chance. Everybody saw what Pronger can do in the playoffs this year when he led Edmonton in every single offensive stat within one game of taking home the silver. What has Steen ever done?

Kaberle played over his head last year mostly because he was able to feed McCabe, who is now decisively proving he doesn't deserve the money he's getting paid. Buy low, sell high: the time to dump Kaberle was when Ferguson had the chance to land a talent like Pronger, still in his prime and a proven commodity.

Does anyone imagine Kaberle carrying Toronto to the Cup finals on his back? Didn't think so.

Time to throw Ferguson under the bus and hire Collie Campbell to right the ship.

[Kevin]

I agree with Scott, for the second time today. I think we can expect him to develop into a solid 2 way player like his father, but to expect more then that is not reasonable.