I'm not one that has the priveledge of being able to talk to the Leafs general manager and coach Pat Quinn personally, but it's becoming quite evident what type of team Pat Quinn wants the Toronto Maple Leafs to look like. With yesterdays almost trade with Boston, where the Leafs would have aquired Boston's Kyle Wanvig it has become even more evident. All the players he has aquired, or has tried to aquire have size. Mike Smith was the old Leafs GM, but now that Quinn has taken over how many players of Steve Sullivans, or Alyn McCauley's size have come in? None. Quinn wants a future Leafs team to be all about size and intellegence.
When you look at the players Quinn has brought in since becoming the GM you will see players like Bryan McCabe (who was a steal from chicago), Shayne Corson and Dave Manson among others who are all big and tough. In the future the Leafs may just have the grittiest team the NHL has ever seen!
Although this seems like it's a sure good thing, you must take players like Thereon Fleury into consideration. He's a small player but boy can he score. The Leafs as most have noticed are a much slower team then in the recent past and the scoring has gone down a notch. If Quinn continues to just rely on size we may not see a player such as Fleury ever come to Toronto under Pat Quinn managment. Looking on the bright side though, all these big gritty players can stop those small goal scorers from going anywhere, so you can see why Pat Quinn is doing this.
To conclude, in the future look for a very gritty and very large Maple Leaf team, even more so then this year. Could these type of players ever lead us to the Stanley Cup? Well, we'll just have to wait and see.
1
5