Keys to the arena.

Phil Kessel is an outstanding talent. You might have already figured out where i'm going with this.

Five goals in seven games is great. Kessel can shoot from five feet inside the blue line and beat almost any goalie in the league with a flick of his wrist. Still, he is not a franchise player.............not even close.

Toronto is currently sitting in 29th place, they have a 1.2% chance of making the playoffs and they have 1/3rd as many points as the first place Sharks. The team could have been in a position to acquire a real franchise player, a player with a pedigree........his father was a wide reciever in the CFL and a memeber of the Canadian bobsleigh team. Taylor Hall scored 90 points in his first OHL season, by comparison the future of the Leafs Nazem Kadri registered 22 in his first season. Trading away your next two first round picks really hampers progresss, the pressure Kadri was under before the Kessel trade seemed insurmountable. Now that Toronto will be waiting another two years before another first rounder is selected I don't like his chances. Especially with the history of 7th overall picks, in the past 10 years Joffrey Lupul, Colin Wilson and Kyle Oksposo seem like the players with the most promise. Good players, not great players.

Most legitimate franchise forwards carry a team on their back and are willing to do certain things that Kessel will not ever do. A real franchise guy will get the team fired up by bringing factors other than a laser beam shot. Mike Richards will hit you, hurt you, take your puck and put it in your net, along with killing penalties and dominating defensively. Alexander Ovechkin is another legit franchise guy and he is a bully on the ice with no regard for the other team. Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Ryan Getzlaf, Dustin Brown and Rick Nash round out my list of real "franchise types". Grit and profound skills are assets these select seven players share.

Let's bring it back to Taylor hall or Tyler Seguin two players who are almost identical in size and skill sets. Both players are 6"1 and 185lbs, they are not perimeter shooters, they are go get it done players, potential franchise forwards. Another top five pick could land one of the big players in the upcoming draft; 6"0 200lb John Mcfarland, 6"3 195 lb Ryan Martindale or 6"3 202 lb Andrew Yogan. All of the forementioned athletes have the size that will be needed for Toronto at the Centre position. The moral of the story, draft tough, draft talented, and if you can draft Canadian.

I sound like Don Cherry...............oh well.

Can We Please Leave This Alone...............

Many prominent writers and on air personalities feel that "head checks" should be out of hockey. To me it seems like media members are pushing for big hits to be removed harder than anybody else and I can't stand it.

Big hits are exiting game changing events that has the same effect as a big save, a killed penalty or a fight. A penalty for head checks puts discretion into the hands of the referee and doubt into the mind of a player. Do they really want a Defenceman who is lining up to punish a forward thinking, “I better not, he might get hurt, I might get a penalty”. Sorry but that is not professional sports.

If there were any way to eliminate “head checks” it would be from the grass-roots level. Teaching the kids how to hit properly is not the answer (they are taught this already), teaching them to carry the puck properly is. When I was kid I learned a lesson early, "when you skate with your head down, you’re probably going to get hammered," look at me concussion free...........thank-you Rockem Sockem 6-20.

The last ten years have seen a drop in concussions, the highest ever incidences per 1000 exposures was in 1998 when it reached 1.81, fast forward 10 years and the number has dropped to 1.04/1000.
reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19235451
Players are getting hurt less often than they were in 1998, they are being treated more appropriately and they are getting paid more. The time that a player spends injured has increased, new guidelines are assuring the players are taken care of properly.

A major reason why NHL players have an average salary just over $1.9 million is danger pay. Being injured is part of the game, if a player happens to suffer an injury that ends their career; an organization known as the NHLPA will make sure the player is taken care of. If all the danger is going to be eliminated, then pay them $70,000 a season for giving us figure skating with shoulder pads.