by Barry Stagg
May 1999
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS: YOUNG TURKS
At this writing the Toronto Maple Leafs have ninety points and climbing. They are in the playoffs. They have scored more goals than any other NHL team. They have many players who are under twenty-five years of age. The farm system, especially the St. John's Maple Leafs, can take considerable credit for producing the talented and well-trained youngsters who are playing firewagon hockey this year.
In many ways the Leafs' performance this season harkens back to the seminal Edmonton Oilers teams of 1980 onward. Those teams led by the incomparable Gretzky and with a supporting cast of Coffey, Messier, Kurri and Lowe invented the brand of go-go offence that transformed both the professional and the amateur game for the next twenty years.
In 1999, teams are finding that a sixty minute offence can have some interesting results both aesthetically and in the win-loss column. Players who have passed through the St. John's Maple Leafs who are making the Toronto team into this new exciting product include young defenceman Daniil Markov and Yannick Tremblay. Recently re-acquired forward Yanic Perreault had a great impact in St. John's during his stay there and this year's St. John's team has contributed high scoring European forward Ladislav Kohn. This is a team and a legion of fans who are starved for success. Only a Stanley Cup will exorcise the bad memories and indeed bad kharma of the Harold Ballard era. Ballard and the incompetence and indifference that he brought to the organization has made his name synonymous with team failure.
Leaf coach Pat Quinn predates the Ballard era, having come to the Leafs as a journeyman defenceman just after the last Stanley Cup win in 1967. He certainly has a keen, intelligent awareness of Leaf tradition and, more importantly, a realization that wishful thinking alone will not bring the team back to its former level of triumph. As the playoffs get set to begin, the polyglot squad that is the Toronto Maple Leafs will be looking to Swedes, Russians, Czechs, Americans and Canadians to lead Canada's favourite hockey team back to the glory that last saw light in Toronto in April 1967.
The possibility of success in the American Hockey League hinges on St. John's being able to catapult into the playoffs after a late season surge brought them within striking distance of first place in their division. Goal scoring leader Jason Podollan is now a minor leaguer in the Los Angeles Kings system after being exchanged for the prodigal Perreault at the trading deadline. Kohn is in Toronto so the team must look to Lonny Bohonos for scoring punch in the post-season. Goaltender Jeff Reese is a veteran with NHL experience and this could be a big factor in extending a run for the Calder Cup.
The team and its fans all across Newfoundland should keep in mind that an extended playoff run will do a lot to boast the teams popularity both among the fans and in the Toronto Maple Leaf head office. The enthusiasm on the part of the Toronto hierarchy for Hockey Night in Newfoundland is in direct proportion to the fiscal viability of the team in St. John's. With fan attendance waning somewhat, a long run by the St. John's team, rampaging over some of the higher ranked squads from the mainland would restore the pleasurable frenzy that surrounded the team like an aura during its first few years of performing on the aged ice at Memorial Stadium.
Therre might even be a chance to upstage the iconoclastic antics of St. John's mayor Andy Wells, now famous nationally for his inspired display of the Tibetan flag. Fame transforms into infamy from the point of view of that unamused premier now resting uncomfortably in the echoing halls of the Confederation Building.
Until next month, be proud, be prosperous.