Highlander
Active member
Sorry but my team will thrash any of your teams!Guilt Trip said:
Your personal all-time Leafs team
- Thread starter Kin
- Start date
Arn
Active member
Nik Bethune said:
I liked Kessel and I thought he got a bad rap here from the media which never helped his image. I do agree with your points but he was one of the best goal scorers in my time watching. My thinking was just how many would he score on a wing with Sundin.
Funny Stajan was actually one of my first sort of ?favourite? players but I think that was cos he was a youngster breaking into the team as I started to follow the team so I enjoyed that and seeing him work hard to develop. And he had a very good career after he moved on also.
Highlander
Active member
Two players I really wanted and we went out and got em: Phil Kessel and JVR. I loved both of them and glad they were Leafs. I can understand people with shorter history with the team than some of us older posters would chose Phil and JVR. However in the last days of the 6 teams the Leafs had some of the best players that ever played for the team. Terry Sawchuk should have been on my list, one of the very best to play the game. Amazing Goalie.
For defence there is only one, outside of Horton and Baun and that is Salming. He was tough as nails, both great on O or D...however my favorite all time is Davie Keon. I would have loved to see him in todays game.
For defence there is only one, outside of Horton and Baun and that is Salming. He was tough as nails, both great on O or D...however my favorite all time is Davie Keon. I would have loved to see him in todays game.
Heroic Shrimp
New member
Nik Bethune said:
I often think of Todd Gill when I'm watching Dermott. Both #23, left shots, both 2nd rounders, similar size, both with moderate offensive instincts and a physical edge, and I could see Dermott evolving into having Gill's kind of career as a versatile defenseman who wasn't great at anything. I'm both surprised and impressed to see that Gill played over a thousand (1007) games.
Nik Bethune said:
Then he got to play on a line with Ron friggin' Francis at the end of his rookie season.
ZBBM
Active member
I don't have a full list (and it would repeat mostly what others have posted) but here are a few recent players who haven't gotten a whole lot of love yet in this thread, and who mostly weren't great, but who I liked pretty well anyway. Not saying I would have them all on my all-time team, but I might pluck one or two of them for it:
Jason Allison (kind of fun to watch a guy so slow who could do so much well)
Francois Beauchemin
Bryan Berard
Brad Boyes
Tyler Bozak
Mariusz Czerkawski
Anders Eriksson (I've got a soft spot for Swedish d-men)
Jeff Finger (yeah, Finger. He wasn't as bad as people make him out to be, just wildly overpaid)
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Jonas Gustavsson (I was really rooting for him to succeed)
Ron Hainsey
Igor Korolev
Pavel Kubina
Nikolay Kulemin
Clarke MacArthur
Mikael Renberg
Anton Stralman
Robert Svehla
Jiri Tlusty (shame he didn't pan out)
Garry Valk
Kyle Wellwood (book and a burger)
Daniel Winnik
And the one I would definitely include on my team just because he achieved a short-lived cultlike following:
Karel Pilar
I loved Pilar.
Jason Allison (kind of fun to watch a guy so slow who could do so much well)
Francois Beauchemin
Bryan Berard
Brad Boyes
Tyler Bozak
Mariusz Czerkawski
Anders Eriksson (I've got a soft spot for Swedish d-men)
Jeff Finger (yeah, Finger. He wasn't as bad as people make him out to be, just wildly overpaid)
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Jonas Gustavsson (I was really rooting for him to succeed)
Ron Hainsey
Igor Korolev
Pavel Kubina
Nikolay Kulemin
Clarke MacArthur
Mikael Renberg
Anton Stralman
Robert Svehla
Jiri Tlusty (shame he didn't pan out)
Garry Valk
Kyle Wellwood (book and a burger)
Daniel Winnik
And the one I would definitely include on my team just because he achieved a short-lived cultlike following:
Karel Pilar
I loved Pilar.
Kin
New member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Definitely a guy I think I would have had a lot of fondness for if he'd been with the team at a better time.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
One of the real great what-ifs. He improved so much in his brief time here that I really think that if he hadn't gotten hurt he would have had a really terrific career.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Same deal with Beauchemin but, yeah, I really liked his game.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Another really good one. I think that if the Leafs had figured out a way to get Sundin an elite sort of scoring LW, we'd think about that line as one of the best in the team's history.
AtomicMapleLeaf
New member
Oh man, born 2 years since the last cup. As a child Keon was my idol as he was captain, but I didn't watch him objectively as a child. My idol change to Sittler and I watched his 10 point game on a shitty black and white team. I moved to the States in '84 and missed Wendal's early career. '93 was special with Dougie and Wendal. Weighting on Babcock's handedness....
Molginy-Sundin-Kessel
Anderson (either one) - Sittler-Marner
Roberts-Keon-Nylander
Mahovlich-Matthews-Vaive
Tavares
Salming-Glennie
Yuskevich-Kaberle
Kaberle-Reilly
Turnbull
Molginy-Sundin-Kessel
Anderson (either one) - Sittler-Marner
Roberts-Keon-Nylander
Mahovlich-Matthews-Vaive
Tavares
Salming-Glennie
Yuskevich-Kaberle
Kaberle-Reilly
Turnbull
Andy007
Active member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Renberg was such a great fit on that line. His work around the boards and in the corners was a sight to behold.
I remember Cherry blasting him for being a floater (and that might have been the last time I voluntarily watched a full Cherry segment).
Ok, everybody is stuck in their era, so I'll do the same. My era goes farther back than most because of my age. I could relate better to Highlander's team than most others. The top achievers while I've been watching:
Plante's 1.88 GAA, and 2nd team all-star selection in '70-71 was the best performance.
Horton made the '68-69 Ist all-star team - only Orr got more votes. Horton also made the 2nd team the previous two seasons.
Salming made the 1st team once and the 2nd team many times.
Lanny McDonald made the 2nd team once as a leaf
Sittler made the 2nd team once as did Dave Keon ( during my era anyway). Keon also won the Conn Smythe trophy in '67 (probably the most important achievement of any Leaf during my era)
Sundin made the 2nd team twice.
My team:
Goal, Plante, Belfour, Joseph
Def, Salming, Horton, Turnbull, Reilly, Kaberle, McCabe, Ellett
Center, Sundin, Gilmour, Keon, Matthews, Sittler
LWing, Clark, Andreychuck, Roberts, Williams, Henderson
RWing, McDonald, Marner, Ellis, Paiment, Pappin (top scorer in '67 cup win)
Plante's 1.88 GAA, and 2nd team all-star selection in '70-71 was the best performance.
Horton made the '68-69 Ist all-star team - only Orr got more votes. Horton also made the 2nd team the previous two seasons.
Salming made the 1st team once and the 2nd team many times.
Lanny McDonald made the 2nd team once as a leaf
Sittler made the 2nd team once as did Dave Keon ( during my era anyway). Keon also won the Conn Smythe trophy in '67 (probably the most important achievement of any Leaf during my era)
Sundin made the 2nd team twice.
My team:
Goal, Plante, Belfour, Joseph
Def, Salming, Horton, Turnbull, Reilly, Kaberle, McCabe, Ellett
Center, Sundin, Gilmour, Keon, Matthews, Sittler
LWing, Clark, Andreychuck, Roberts, Williams, Henderson
RWing, McDonald, Marner, Ellis, Paiment, Pappin (top scorer in '67 cup win)
ZBBM
Active member
Pick said:
It's damned hard to make 1st team All-Star. Sundin is a first-ballot HOFer and he never made it. And as much as I loved him, honestly compels me to admit that he didn't deserve to; there was always somebody a little bit better.
Of course, those somebodies weren't playing with Jonas Hoglunds on their lines.
louisstamos
Active member
I started watching in the late 80s - back in the Allan Bester/Peter Ing days. (in fact, I remember watching the latter play with the Newmarket Saints, back when the farm team was up there!)
I also imagine that we're going with the players' level while they were Leafs? So someone like Mogilny was a great player in his prime, by the time he came to Toronto, he had regressed a tad.
Clark - Gilmour - Kessel
Roberts - Sundin - Damphousse
Nylander - Matthews - Marner
Kulemin - Zezel - Tucker
Antropov, McCauley
Kaberle - Lefebvre
Markov - Yushkevich
Wesley - Svehla
McCabe
Cujo
Belfour
Yeah, hard not to fit Stajan in there, but I have a lot of love for Zezel, who was the first Leaf autograph I ever got.
I also imagine that we're going with the players' level while they were Leafs? So someone like Mogilny was a great player in his prime, by the time he came to Toronto, he had regressed a tad.
Clark - Gilmour - Kessel
Roberts - Sundin - Damphousse
Nylander - Matthews - Marner
Kulemin - Zezel - Tucker
Antropov, McCauley
Kaberle - Lefebvre
Markov - Yushkevich
Wesley - Svehla
McCabe
Cujo
Belfour
Yeah, hard not to fit Stajan in there, but I have a lot of love for Zezel, who was the first Leaf autograph I ever got.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Could you make the case that Sundin was kinda robbed of being a 1st team All-Star in 01-02? He finished second to Sakic that year but he had 1 more point than Sakic and also 15 (!) more goals. While Colorado wasn't exactly as stacked that year offensively as they would be later on they still had Roy (1st team All-Star) and Blake (2nd team All-Star).
I just wonder what gave Sakic the edge that year despite being (very slightly) outscored points wise and crushed goals wise. All while playing on a team with other certain future HHOFs. Does anyone with a better memory than 13-year old CtB recall anything about that argument?