To spend or not to spend

By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports TORONTO -- Their star centre has got a broken ankle and now the Toronto Maple Leafs must decide if they should break the bank and NHL ranks to replace captain and offensive force Mats Sundin.

Publicly, improving from within is the route the Leafs will take for now. Leafs president Ken Dryden all but wrote off the possibility Tuesday of signing an unrestricted free agent -- perhaps a Dmitri Khristich or a Joe Juneau -- to plug the hole left by Sundin's injury. But NHL sources said Tuesday night the Leafs have a strong interest in Khristich with Leafs coach and general manager Pat Quinn leading the charge. "Quinn wants Khristich big time," said one NHL source. "But it's not as simple as that."

When the question was put to Quinn -- would the club sign a free agent like Khristich or make some kind of deal to compensate for the loss of Sundin -- he said: "It's something for discussion, but I wouldn't say it would be my call."

Larry Tanenbaum, a Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment director, said the club's ownership would look at any proposals Quinn and Dryden would bring to the directors for consideration to improve the club.

"We'd look at a recommendation from them. Everything is so new right now with Mats' injury. The highest priority is getting him back on the ice," he said. "You'd best direct that question to Ken Dryden and Pat. They've been winners so far. We've been a cohesive team so far, it's been really great. We're all singing from the same song sheet."

But Dryden wasn't sounding convinced yesterday the signing of a Khristich or a Juneau would be the answer to the club's problems.

"Who are the free agents out there who could make our team better? That's the question we asked of ourselves in June for July," said Dryden. "Our first thought was the players the Rangers wanted to sign and were going to sign no matter what, so they weren't going to be available to us or anybody else.

"Why go out and sign somebody who essentially we've already got? That doesn't work." But that's the point now. The Leafs are now missing something they had.

There are problems facing the Leafs in simply writing a cheque and signing Khristich. First off, there are political repercussions that would come with a Khristich signing. He has been idle since the Boston Bruins took the unprecented move of exercising their walk away rights after an arbitrator awarded Khristich $2.95 million for this season. The Bruins chose to make Khristich an unrestricted free agent rather than pay him. They retain the right to match any offer less than $2.24 million, but Khristich is being made an example to other players who might want to go to arbitration next year. Agents believe there's an unwritten "hands off" policy when it comes to Khristich and the only way he'll change teams at this point is through a trade.

The Bruins and president Harry Sinden are looking like heroes to fans right now for putting their foot down on escalating player salaries and if a team, like the Leafs, was to simply give him what he wants, the public perception of the league becoming more fiscally responsible would be undermined.

Secondly, talk has been NHL teams are operating with budgets this season and the league wants the clubs to stick to them. The Leafs are spending about $34.5 million this year on player salaries. It wouldn't look good if the Leafs simply tried to spend their way out of their present bit of bad luck, though there is apparently a provision to allow for increased expenses because of injuries.

There remains the matter of games to be played, with the Leafs hosting the Florida Panthers at the Air Canada Centre Wednesday night.

Until help arrives -- if it does -- Quinn will have to make do. That means moving Yanic Perreault, a guy a lot of folks had written out of the Leafs picture, between Steve Thomas and Tomas Hoglund Wednesday night.

Nikolai Antropov, the 19-year-old called up from the the Leafs' St. John's farm club to take Sundin's spot on the roster, will be spotted.

Quinn's got other worries besides the cast on his captain's ankle.

The Leafs, particularly the forwards, haven't been playing well without the puck, a weakness that has been particularly evident in the last two games against the speedy Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators. The Leafs forwards haven't been doing a good enough job coming back with their wingers, giving the opposition a free run at the Leafs' defencemen.

"I don't like our style of play," said Quinn. "We're fighting the same thing we fought last year with or without Mats. We've slipped into that laissez-faire way of playing up ice. That adds a lot of pressure on our defence when the other team is shooting it in. Nobody is buying time for our defence to get back and make a decent play."

The odds are good the Leafs are going to buy themselves some time during Sundin's injury.

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