FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH: DEAR LEAFS FANS...

by E. Spencer Kyte, Bugs and Cranks

Have you not figured out yet that your team is never going to win anything ever again?

Every year, thousands of die hards look over the roster, proclaiming the latest additions as the final pieces of the puzzle and that this year is their year. It's been that way for over forty years now. Doesn't that tell you something?

The current incarnation of the Make Me Laughs is not any different. The same problems that have been a part of the Toronto Organization since I first laid on the floor to watch the first period of Hockey Night in Canada before it was my bedtime still plague the franchise today. Save for a couple years in the early to mid 1990's, nothing has ever changed and there is a great likelihood that it never will either.

D'you know what a great approach to building your team is? Signing aging players coming off of career years to contracts that closely resemble anthrax so that when you finally come to your senses and realize you made a colossal mistake, no one else in the entire league will take them off your hands, not even for fifty cents on the dollar.

Say hello to Jason Blake, Bryan McCabe and Darcy Tucker.

Also a great idea, trading a great goalie prospect for a guy who went from winning the Rookie of the Year Award to being replaced by a 35-year-old journeyman who used to star in the Swiss League.

Meet Andrew Raycroft.

Even better still, bringing in another goalie one year after your guy with the shaky confidence to begin with put up 37 wins behind a defense that was made up of, at times, four rookies, one over paid McCabe and two dudes that are slower than molasses. Yeah, the competition will do wonders for him.

Enter Vesa Toskala.

Oh yeah, speaking of the defense corps, who doesn't love having two guys who are absolutely monsters size wise and move like Frankenstein on skates in "The New NHL" that is all about speed and skill?

Hal Gill & Pavel Kubina, come on down!

What about convincing yourself that a kid who has never put up more than 45 points in a season and has a history of getting injured is the key to your success and your #2 center?

It's not your fault Kyle Wellwood. It's not your fault...

Always allowing the media to toss your coach under the bus whenever the crappy team he has to lead under performs on the ice is bunk too!

You deserve better Paul Maurice.

Thing is, this franchise has no interest in winning. They don't need to. They sell out the ACC every night, have a giant media base that covers their every move, lead the league in merchandising and have a fanbase that has proven that even forty years of mind-numbing futility won't drive them away.

Here is where it gets really tough, because it's time for the Maple Leafs, their management and their fans to make a really difficult decision about the future of the franchise.

Whether Leafs Nation likes it or not, they aren't winning the Stanley Cup this year. They aren't winning it any time in the next five if you ask me. Their farm system doesn't have much to offer and the one decent prospect they have (Jiri Tlusty) likes to take naked pictures of himself, so, that's not very good. So what the hell do they do with Mats Sundin?

If anything, they learn from their mistake of a couple years ago when they didn't ship Bryan McCabe out the door when he was having his monster year in 2005-2006 and ask Mats to pack his bags for a handful of talent. Not prospects, talent.

The only way the Leafs can rightfully trade Sundin, and they damn well should, is to get a bunch of guys who can contribute right now and into the future. Shipping off the franchise's all-time leader in everything offensive for a handful of guys who might or might not be stars isn't enough.

If I'm Mats, I limit my destinations to one place and one place only - Detroit. Yes, I know that it is awful convenient for the life-long Red Wings fan to say, but hear me out on this.

Detroit is guaranteed - yes, I said guaranteed - to make it to the Western Conference Finals. That's one step away from the Cup, something every player and especially one at the tail end of his career like Sundin yearns for. With his no trade clause, Sundin can basically pick where he wants to go should JFJ come asking.

Why else would he pick Detroit? I dunno, maybe to skate on a line with talented countrymen Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom? Or what about manning the powerplay with a slick passer like Pavel Datsyuk who can set him up for that one-timer from the faceoff dot?

If I'm JFJ - and thank the stars I'm not - I pick up the phone, call Kenny Holland and offer him Mats. I let his first garbage offer go by and then tell him I want the following:

Valterri Filppula, Jiri Hudler, Niklas Kronwall, a prospect and a first round draft pick.

That is a deal the Red Wings should take and the Leafs could be happy with.

Kronwall is the second coming of Nick Lidstrom. You heard it here people... remember that.

Hudler is a skill guy who is just buried on the depth chart in The D and needs to be on a scoring line to make an impact. He's produced at every level and is producing this season.

Filppula is a mix of skill and strength, exactly what you need in The New NHL. He can put the puck in the net (at least, I think he will be able to in great regularity in the next couple years) or be a grinder. Plus he's 23 (24 tops), which makes him 10 years younger than Toronto's current inhabitant of that role, Darcy Tucker.

Whether it happens or not is up to Fergie Ferg, Larry "Meet The" Tannenbaum and the rest of the shadow puppets that make up MLSE. Given their track record, they'll probably hold on to Sundin, trade Kaberle for a couple aging veterans and a bag of pucks during the off season and bring in another mediocre goalie to keep things competitive between the pipes.

And Leafs fans everywhere will proclaim that 2008 - 2009 is going to be their year!