Damien Cox
Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager, Brian Burke should have uttered one phrase to explain the situation, one simple little phrase to envelope the reasoning for the Phil Kessel trade;
“Our picks in our vision of where we ended up are overvalued in accordance to the available crop of prospects.â€
But in Toronto, to admit that in what’s deemed as a ‘rebuild’ would have been a PR disaster.
Despite popular opinion, he wasn’t wrong.
The world is no longer flat, it’s round .. like a full-cirle
It's been rumored for a few days now, but on Wednesday afternoon, prospect Jerry D'Amigo has finally put pen to paper to sign a 3 [more…]
According to the Toronto Star's Damien Cox, the Maple Leafs have targeted three potential players to bolster their lineup heading into next season.
For starters, [more…]
It's not every day the Maple Leafs name a new captain. In fact, it's not every decade. Sundin was named in 1997, 13 years prior to the Leafs appointment of Phaneuf. And with the announcement being made in front of a room of roughly 100 media personnel, the message was relayed to the world using every different angle imaginable.
Instead of weighing the pros and cons, balancing the collective good choices of Burke and Wilson against the bad, MLHS is going to bring you into the event. Thousands of writers have provided their opinion but little time has been spent enabling the reader to form their own. So please, if you will, grab your notepad and follow us past the security and the media media check-in, and into the press conference that will see Dion Phaneuf named the 18th captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. [more…]
Dave Nonis on his new two-year contract extension with Toronto:
"I'm very lucky. I have more to say about our team than some GMs do," said Nonis of his unique position as Brian Burke's right hand man. "It's not a job that's comparable with other positions around the league."
"If you look at our roster now and compare it to 16 months ago, it's not only different, it's younger and better," he said. "But we've still got lots of work to do. The job is not done by a longshot. There are more pieces to add."
Cox reports that one of those pieces may be 25-year-old center Roman Cervenka of Czech club HC Slavia Praha, perhaps familiar to you from his international appearances alongside Jaromir Jagr on Czech Republic's Olympic side in February.
After tonight's snoozer, let's move on to a bigger and better subject.
Some of you may have watched a surprising Norway side battle Switzerland to the bitter end for a quarterfinal birth in their final preliminary game at the Olympics; if so, try to recall a 5'7, 160-pound speedster working a stick as tall as the man himself.
From Damien Cox: "This isn't how the Maple Leafs hoped Mikhail Grabovski would be spending his Olympic break. The 26-year-old centre was arrested at 2:30 a.m. Saturday by Vancouver police and kept in jail overnight after allegedly being involved in a street altercation. Grabovski was apparently released to his parents at about 9 a.m. Saturday."
[more…]
Update: Damien Cox is reporting that Burke is currently working on at least two possible trades.
- The Toronto Sun's got a very interesting quote [more…]
- The Edmonton Sun reports that Forbes has ranked the Maple Leafs as the NHL's most valuable team for the fourth straight season. The team [more…]
TSN's Darren Dreger is reporting a trade between Brian Burke and Peter Chiarelli that will see Phil Kessel join the Maple Leafs as agreed upon [more…]
I read an article in the Toronto Star the other day, in which Damien Cox suggests that the Maple Leafs weren't as soft of a club as many believe last season, due mostly to the fact that the Leafs were tied for 13th in the NHL regarding fighting misconducts, and were 15th overall when it came to penalty minutes. The point was to demonstrate that the club was average in terms of team toughness, not the soft club many of us and Brian Burke believe.
Some interesting contrasting rumors/speculation in the Toronto media today regarding Kessel:
Damien Cox of the Toronto Star hears that Phil Kessel is very interested in [more…]
