Looking at Tuukka Rask beating the Maple Leafs last night in his NHL debut reminded me of the Tom Kurvers trade.
Early in the 1989-90 season, Leaf GM Gerry MacNamara brought Kurvers to Toronto from New Jersey for a future 1st round pick. As you may note, trading draft picks has been standard Leaf practices for decades. Kurvers at the time was a pure offensive defenceman and good on the powerplay. Management of the day thought that they had a pretty good collection of players and that someone like Kurvers would put them over the top. That season he scored 15 goals for the Leafs and 52 points. But in the playoffs he was a bust and the Leafs were knocked out of the first round in 5 games.
Management decided the team was too offensive minded and couldn't get through the grind of the playoffs. So the team was dismantled the next season and Kurvers was shipped off to Vancouver. He retired 2 years later. The bottom fell for the Leafs that season and they finished second last which happened to be the year the Devils had the Leafs' first pick. Quebec drafted Eric Lindros first overall and the Devils followed with Scott Niedermayer. He turned out to be a pretty good player. Last time I checked he was on 4 Stanley Cup teams and had won the Norris Trophy and the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Jump forward to the 2005-06 season. Leaf GM John Ferguson thinks he has a pretty good team but needs more consistent goaltending. He trades a Finnish goaltending prospect, Tuukka Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft. The Leafs don't make the playoffs and management concludes that Raycroft doesn't appear to be the answer to their goaltending problems.
This story is beginning to sound familiar.
