Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Now Wait Just a Second Good Sir

Is Toronto's drafting and scouting really that bad? Ho ho ho you say. What about Luca Cereda? What about Eric Fichaud? Yeah they stink and died in third world countries without winning a cup with the Leafs, that's true, but Toronto's first round drafting hasn't been atrocious lately.

Toronto's last first rounder was 13th overall in 2006 used to select Jiri "Naked Time" Tlusty. Lusty looked pretty good this year, I'm going to give him a thumbs up.

In 2005 Toronto selected Tuukka "My Face Scares Small Children" Rask 21st overall. He looks like he'll do a number against the Leafs for a long time as a member of the Bruins. Crap. Thumbs up. 2003 and 2004 never happened, but in 2002 the Leafs picked Alexander "Dreamy Swede" Steen at 24, and he neither stinks at hockey nor had a career ending injury in Switzerland. Thumbs up!

In 2001 the Toronto Maple Leafs selected Carlo "Hurt Today" Colaiacovo at 17th. He's good except for being broken. Thumbs up to Coca-colaiacovo.

Before that, in 2000 the Leafs selected Brad Boyes 24th overall and I don't want to talk about it. In 1999 they picked a stinker in Cereda, but in 1998 they make glorious benefit for Kazakhstan Leaf fans by selecting Nik "The Big Unit" Antropov 10th overall.

What's this all mean? It means the Leafs have done ok drafting lately. They should probably hold on to players and not draft hockey players from Switzerland but we'll chalk that up to college age experimentation*. The Leafs pick 7th this year, and the last time they picked that high they selected... *scrolls up on page at HockeyDB.com, stops*. Oh man.

* This line doesn't make sense.

8 comments:

Loser Domi said...

They should probably hold on to players and not draft hockey players from Switzerland but we'll chalk that up to college age experimentation

Well, I understood it. Then again I am in college and working on the "experimentation" bit, so maybe I'm just in the same mindset as them.

Pseudonym said...

You are very generous with your thumbs up. The jury is still out on the first rounders on the Leaf roster.

PPP said...

Holy crap! Did LD just say that she is in the experimentation stage? You know what that means right!?!?

Pillow fights.

Jaredoflondon said...

"You know what that means right!?!?

I know what it ment in my college days.
Trying various things on KD so it didn't taste like KD anymore.

God I hate KD now.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

good on you for not shitting all over the Leafs' drafting...we haven't done as bad in recent years as people like to think, but there's def room for improvement, starting with the 7th pick this summer.

Chemmy said...

Well, Toronto certainly hasn't drafted any top flight talent, but they've been picking low enough that I think they got decent returns. Antropov, Steen, Colaiacovo (if he were healthy) and Tlusty is a decent haul given where the Leafs were drafting.

A few top ten draft picks hopefully will result in one or two legitimate first liners, so we'll have to wait and see.

Loser Domi said...

@PPP "pillow fights"--yeah, you wish. Maybe that's how they settle things at MLSE...

Jared, you needed more ketchup

Scott Baker said...

Let's not forget the last time we selected 3rd overall! That's right...

Scott Thornton!