Thursday Mail Bag

MICHAEL STUPARYK/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

The Great Eye be focused on Brian Burke for a while.

Poor Mats Sundin. He’s going to have to put up with a little less attention from the Toronto media for a bit.

This Brian Burke story’s going to take up everybody’s time.

Sundin, of course, couldn’t care less, and probably would welcome less scrutiny. But the compelling pre-season question - what will happen first, Burke to Toronto or Sundin back in the NHL? - seems about ready to be answered, with Burke’s move east from Anaheim the answer.

If Burke’s half the negotiator I think he is, he’s going to drum up a market for his services as best he can, no easy chore partway through an NHL season. Theoretically, after all, 30 jobs are filled with executives doing their jobs, and Burke’s good friends will pretty much all of ‘em.

But friendship is friendship and business is business, and Burke knows the market for his services, with the scent of a championship in Anaheim still in wind, will likely never be greater.

So are there really other teams out there that might be willing to dump their current GM and hire Burke now?

Maybe. None will say so, of course. The candidates, purely theoretically, would be Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Ottawa.

Boston has the second best record in the East and would seem to be unlikely to unseat GM Peter Chiarelli. Ottawa is spinning its wheels at 6-7-2, but dumping Bryan Murray for Burke would be drastic even for Eugene Melnyk, and that move might tale Burke more north than he’d want to go, and to a very small market.

Philly? The Flyers haven’t played well this season. Paul Holmgren got them a long way last spring, but remember Burke was once a Flyer farmhand and his brand of blood ‘n guts hockey would play well in a city where the Phillies have raised the bar for everybody.

Then there’s Chicago. This is purely a guess, but if there’s a team that might go aggressively after Burke right now, it might be the new-look Hawks. This is a team that dumped local hero Denis Savard as head coach four games into the season simply because they understood that Joel Quenneville, who was in the organization, was a better coach.

President John McDonough, hired away from the Chicago Cubs by Rocky Wirtz as one of his first acts after the death of his father, Dollar Bill, is an aggressive executive who has turned the Hawks into a hot ticket in the Windy City, a team that has sold out every game this season. All Chicago’s games are now on local TV, the team has a franchise-record 14,000 season tickets and will host the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field this January.

Ambition is back in the air in Chicago, and without putting too fine a point on it, McDonough didn’t hire current GM Dale Tallon, and after the Savard firing, clearly wouldn’t hesitate to upgrade if given the opportunity.

At the end of the day, the Leafs still address more of Burke’s needs/wants than Chicago or any other club. But Burke will want to quickly construct alternative scenarios to improve his negotiation position. And make no mistake about it, this is going to be one heckuva negotiation.

Now on to this week’s mail bag:

Q: Damien,

While it's hard to consider any Leaf "underrated" the way things go around here, I'm surprised more isn't said about Nik Kulemin's play. I'd say his rookie campaign is going at least as well as Luke Schenn's, and even though he's the third best player on his line he shows a lot of smarts, above average ice vision, and is among the most physical of the Leafs forwards. Am I overrating him? What's your take on Kulemin? Any chance you could rank the Leafs rookies 15 games into the season?

John Bastedo, Oakville

A: It’s so early, and the challenge of the NHL, particularly for newly arrived Europeans is the length of the season and the sheer grind of it all. Kulemin has shown some flashes, and I love the release on his shot. Clearly, he’s still becoming acclimatized to the NHL and North America, and language is an issue in that record. It makes sense that as he gains a comfort level he’ll be more productive. I’m not sure I see him as a physical player as you do, but he doesn’t seem to shy away.

Based on their play so far, if I were to rate the Leaf rookies I would give Luke Schenn the highest marks, followed by Mikhail Grabovski, Kulemin and the now injured John Mitchell. It’s a promising group.

A Constantly Moving Target

You have an imaginary second NHL team in Toronto that some believe now can have a price tag attached. Surely, pretend jersey mock-ups are on the way.

You have Mats Sundin's newly sold Toronto home, which surely belongs in the realm of the imaginary for most of us. Why a bachelor needs eight bathrooms certainly strains the imagination.

And you have the NHL justice system, always an ever-changing dynamic, requiring new levels of imagination from those who mete out hockey justice and from those trying to understand that justice.

There's always room for a new precedent, it seems. Chris Simon gets 25 games pretty much out of the blue. Mark Bell gets 15 games based on no particular case law.

Now you have a three-game ban handed down to Montreal's Tom Kostopoulos for checking Maple Leaf defenceman Mike Van Ryn from behind in game Saturday night, leaving Van Ryn seriously injured.

This type of incident happens frequently in the NHL, and often goes unpunished. Last year, Philly's Randy Jones ended the season of Boston's Patrice Bergeron on a far worse hit and got a two-game ban.

This season, Leaf forward Ryan Hollweg, a notorious multiple offender when it comes to hitting from behind, struck again on St. Louis defenceman Alex Pietrangelo and received an automatic three-game suspension after injuring Pietrangelo, but nothing more.

So Kostopoulos, a first time offender, receives more than Jones, and the same as Hollweg, a player penalized time and time again for hitting from behind.

And this system makes sense to somebody?

Look, if they want to make every hitting-from-behind major punishable with a three-game suspension, that's okay with me. Or 10 games. That's fine with me too. In fact, if they want to make every hit from behind a major, rather than giving the referees the discretion to hand out a two-minute minor for boarding, that's okay with me too.

But this Kostopoulos suspension is clearly a brand new level of NHL justice. In fact, by noting the hit was on a player who was "not unsuspecting," NHL authorities have apparently notified all NHL players that players are no longer required to protect themselves in any way, shape or form.

Again, I'm okay with this. But Kostopolous should have at least been notified that the rules were changing beforehand so he could adjust. But this was a nationally televised game, and this involved the Leafs, so the degree of righteous indignation is ear-splitting.

So Kostopolous gets punished not for what he did, but for where he did it and against which team. The screaming from the Leafs is quite extraordinary, including coach Ron Wilson's call for teams to be punished in some way when players do bad things.

Hmm. Can't remember Wilson saying the same thing after Hollweg was suspended. Wonder why.

Meanwhile, Brandon Sutter is still out, a victim of a nasty hit to the head by Doug Weight. No suspension. No penalty.

This is always the way its been with NHL suspensions. Completely scattershot, no minimums or maximums, just make it up as you go along.

Right out of one's imagination.

A Good Play Gone Bad

Unless you want to change the rules, there's not much that could have been changed about the hit on Mike Van Ryn on Saturday night.

Van Ryn was doing his job, trying to make the toughest, most courageous play in the game, which is hustling back to get the puck in your own zone knowing you're going to get drilled into the end boards.

Don't tell me about the "tough guys" of the games, the guys who scrap. Tell me about the Van Ryns who make that play night after night. Those are the tough guys. Those are the players you need more of to make a tough hockey team.

So Van Ryn was making the right play. So too was Tom Kostopoulos, a 29-year-old winger from Mississauga who isn't in the league to be fancy and score but to skate hard, finish his check and be a grinding forward.

His job was to try to force Van Ryn to turn over the puck, and then create an offensive chance for his team by either motivating Van Ryn not to make the right play or by taking him heavily into the end boards. The one option he doesn't have if he wants to continue making $900,000 a season in the NHL as a semi-skilled laborer is to pull up and not hit Van Ryn.

So you had two veteran NHLers trying to do the right thing. At the last moment, Van Ryn spun back, again trying to make the right play by playing the puck but avoiding the hit. Kostopoulos continued with the hit, and the result was serious injury to the Leaf defenceman and a major and game misconduct for the Montreal forward.

No intent to injure. Just a good play gone bad.

So no, Kostopoulos doesn't deserve a suspension, although the nature of the hit mandated his expulsion from the match. He probably will get at least one game off, however, for making that play in a nationally televised Montreal-Toronto game with the entire hockey world watching. If it happens in Nashville in a game between the Predators and Blue Jackets, we probably never hear about it.

But he doesn't deserve a suspension.

Now if you want to change the rules, that's another thing. If you want to go to no-touch icing, or let the goalies play the puck anywhere they want again, or outlaw hitting within five feet of the end boards, then you might avoid that kind of play in the future.

Otherwise, it's going to happen in this sport of high-speed, violent collisions. But this wasn't dirty. This wasn't Cam Janssen hitting Tomas Kaberle five Mississippis after the puck was gone or repeat offender Ryan Hollweg hammering an opponent from behind for the zillionth time.

But others will differ, and some will suggest the play never would have happened if the Leafs had a goon in their lineup. Those people you'll never convince of anything, and the presence of Georges Laraque didn't stop the Leafs from steamrolling Carey Price on three separate occasions on Saturday night.

The unfortunate thing for Van Ryn is that after missing time last year with wrist problems, his game was coming to together nicely in Toronto, and then this happens. Game's just not fair sometimes.

A Defensive Start

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

3.43 times a game so far, 24th overall in the NHL.

Granted, nobody thought the Maple Leafs would be able to score as well as they have early this season.

But hands up those of you who predicted the Leafs would be worse defensively under Ron Wilson than they were under Paul Maurice.

Not me.

But the numbers, at least to this point, don't lie. Last season, the Leafs allowed 3.12 goals per game, which left them ranked 27th in the NHL and was part of the reason they missed post-season play and Maurice was fired.

Wilson promised to tighten things up, and certainly his track record suggested he'd be able to do that. And he still might.

But a main reason why this year's Leafs have only been able to win five of 14 games - given all the kudos thrown their way, you'd think that win total would be higher, wouldn't you? - is that they can't keep the puck out of their net very efficiently.

The club's defensive ranking is actually slightly higher, 24th overall. But they're almost a third-of-a-goal worse at 3.43 per game, and climbing after coughing up 23 goals in their last five games. They are also the NHL's worst penalty killing team, another area that Wilson was supposed to clean up. Instead, right now the Leafs are less efficient killing penalties than they were under Maurice last season.

All this should tell you three things:

1) The forwards are getting a little giggly over the team's surprising offence and are looking to join in, leaving their defensive responsibilities uncovered.

2) Despite all the non-sensical talk about how the Leafs have this "surplus" of NHL quality defencemen, they have one A player in Tomas Kaberle, a B player in Pavel Kubina, two C-level blueliners in Mike Van Ryn and Jeff Finger, a raw rookie in Luke Schenn and several others who can't stay in the lineup of one of the NHL's worst defensive teams on a regular basis.

It was suggested here before the season that the Leafs might have the worst blueline crew in hockey. It might not be that bad, but its not much better.

3) Vesa Toskala is not having a good year. He has the league's 26th best save percentage - .886 compared to .904 a year ago - and has won five of 11 decisions despite the fact the Leafs have been regularly outshooting their opponents, particularly of late. Curtis Joseph, through the pre-season and in 65 minutes during the regular season, has yet to indicate he'll be able to help much between the pipes.

The Leafs have posted some surprising results by being faster and more prolific on offence. But bad defence is starting to catch up with them.

Thursday Mail Bag

Great to see Glenn Anderson getting into the Hall of Fame on Monday.

Just one question . . . what took so long? Why in the world did it take so long for the Hall to induct a player with 498 regular season goals who was regarded as possibly the best post-season scorer of his time?

But two months after the very sad death of longtime WHL executive Ed Chynoweth, he was immediately inducted as a builder?

The answers we’ll never know, although Anderson did face a mandatory three-year waiting period while Chynoweth did not. But one, Anderson, was clearly far more accomplished in the sport, wouldn’t you agree?

We’ll never know, of course, because of the secretive nature of the 17-member Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee, a group ostensibly charged with caring for the history of the sport but one that operates in total secrecy. Not much has changed, really, from the day Gil Stein tried to manufacture his own induction and almost got away with it.

Anderson, I can tell you, had his way into the Hall blocked by at least one member who held a personal grudge against the former Edmonton star for something that happened during his career. Chynoweth, on the other hand, was an extremely well liked fellow who has many friends in the sport, including the selection committee.

That’s how the Hall works. Still a buddy-buddy deal. It’s also why the institution continues to embarrass itself by not inducting women even though the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame have already done so.

There are no women on the selection committee and no one intimately involved in women’s hockey. Since only the committee can nominate induction candidates, no women even get to that stage.

So Cammi Granato is enshrined in the U.S. and IIHF halls of fame, but ignored by the Hockey Hall of Fame while junior hockey bureaucrats are allowed in as fast as possible.

Nice little secret club they’ve got going there.

Not on to this week’s mail bag:

Q: Hi Damien. Like a typical Leafs fan, I want to believe there is a way we can make the N.J. Devils and Martin Brodeur's misfortune into a positive opportunity.

Does Lou Lamorello really expect Kevin Weekes to fill Brodeur's skates for 50 games?

In his playtime this season, he had done quite well, but he is not really a name in net that inspires confidence. His only significant playoff minutes came for Carolina where he played second fiddle to Arturs Irbe.

His stats over the last few years have been rather weak.

The opportunist in me wonders if now is the time for Fletch to dangle Toskala as trade bait, and bring up Pogge to take over between the pipes as the #1.

Perhaps it's (way) too early to consider this. Statistically, the Leafs currently hold the coveted 8th and final playoff spot. Sure, there are three teams behind them by only 2 points with at least one game in hand (Washington, Tampa, Philly), but the players believe, and historically the ownership has believed, that the playoffs are a lock.

All sarcasm aside, my real concern would be if Pogge is ready, and if calling him up to the NHL now would only hurt his career. Is it too risky for the Leafs?

Arthur Bailey, Toronto

A: For starters, I think Jersey will go with Weekes for a while, and quite possibly until Brodeur gets back in late March. The Devils have traditionally played a team game built on strong defence, and my bet is that Weekes will do well enough to at the very least keep Jersey around .500 particularly when some of their injured players, Brian Rolston in particular, get back. Plus, this is a chance for all those people who figured anybody could put up Brodeur numbers behind that Jersey defence to be proven correct.

As far as Toskala goes, however, I do believe there’s a chance the Leafs may dangle him as trade bait during the season. While the team has played well in the early going, I continue to believe a post-season berth does not lie in the Leafs’ future, and even if they’re close in January or February they should still be looking at moves to enhance the long-term future of the club. Nobody seems to think Justin Pogge is ready, but I have to believe that at some point this season he’ll get his first NHL start, just to see what the kid can do.

Argo landscape changing

DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

Brad Watters says it's time to move on.

The bodies are flying down in Argo-land.

Last week, Don Matthews was the first to depart in the wake of a disastrous 4-14 season, quitting as head coach to return to Oregon and a quiet retirement.

On Tuesday, chief operating officer Brad Watters announced his resignation.

Argo staff members were told Monday that Watters would be leaving, and some were left with the impression he had been fired by owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski.

Watters told The Star Tuesday morning, however, that he was quitting.

"There are just other things I want to do now," he said. "I've decided to move on. It was a mutual thing. No firing."

Watters, who helped organize Toronto's very successful Grey Cup last November, joined the Argos last winter after the resignation of team president Keith Pelley. With Michael (Pinball) Clemons acting as chief executive officer, Watters was less visible than Pelley, and wasn't involved as a liaison between ownership and the football operations office as was Pelley.

"I spent three years here with the Grey Cup, and then the Argos, and it was time to move on," said Watters, son of former Maple Leafs executive Bill Watters.

"I've left the business in a better place than it was."

Watters said he's not sure how the Argos front office needs to reorganize after such a terrible season, one in which the team lost its final eight games under Matthews and included rumours of dysfunction between top executives and the football office.

"That's for David and Howard to figure out," he said. "I thought it was a good move to get out of their way."

Cynamon said on Monday he expects Clemons to remain with the organization, but said he won't ask him to coach again. The future of GM Adam Rita is less solid, but Cynamon said he hopes a way can be found for Rita to return, as well.