Hey Toronto, if you could create your very own cellar dweller, what would you include?

Well, you'd start with Jeff Finger, add a goalie who won't make your team any better by sitting on the bench and sign a serviceable forward in Niklas Hagman who's likely as good as he's ever going to get.

Hockey, Toronto style.

For a team that's supposed to be rebuilding, that sure doesn't sound like much of an off-season effort does it?

But let's give Cliff Fletcher a little credit, because if you do, it all adds up to two words: John Tavares.

I keep trying to find reasons to believe otherwise, but how else can you explain a team without anything remotely resembling a cornerstone player making no effort to acquire one in the last two weeks?

Heading into July, the Leafs, in the league's most lucrative hockey market, were in need of a franchise player as badly as any team in the NHL, yet they failed to legitimately enter the Marian Hossa sweepstakes. Jaromir Jagr was there for the taking. So was Brian Campbell, and so were a handful of restricted free agents including Anaheim's Corey Perry, who re-signed for $5.3 million over five years. Sure, Cliff Fletcher is attempting to bring back the former franchise guy, Mats Sundin, but if you think Toronto's one year offer was anything more than a courtesy, there's no need to read any further.

All this silence, from a team that's allegedly rebuilding with Nik Antropov penciled in as its top line centre? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see a lot of building going on this summer unless you call trying to overpay a 28-year-old Swedish Elite League veteran with no NHL experience "building for the future."

The league rejected that contract offer to Jonas Frogren on Wednesday saying he is only eligible to receive the league minimum as a first-year player.

Sounds to me like a smoke screen by the Leafs to give the budgetary impression that they're trying to compete in a year when they expect to finish last.

But that's just me.

Over the next nine months, the race to draft John Tavares is going to make the Sidney Crosby draft year look like an undercard and not because Tavares will ever be Sidney Crosby in terms of value to his franchise. It will be a three-ring circus because the Leafs will absolutely be the frontrunners to land the top pick this time, and it's beginning to look like that’s exactly how they want it.

Get ready for a shizz-show of epic proportions this winter Leaf fans, and get ready to find out what the rest of Canada has known for decades: Its fun to cheer against your team, and it might just pay off.





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