Leafs brass eyes Cup run

By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun A subtle change has taken place in the Maple Leafs front office. It's not the kind of thing that requires a news conference. It's simply a change in approach.
The people in the team's upper echelon really believe the Leafs can win the Stanley Cup this season.
For public consumption, they've always said they felt that way. But that is just part of the business. The difference is that now, after watching the way NHL Eastern Conference has unfolded and seeing their own team play for three weeks, they really believe it.
The first premise is any team which can get to the Stanley Cup final has a serious chance. In a best-of-seven series with a goalie like Curtis Joseph, you don't have to be the better team to win the Cup. You just have to be close enough to let the goaltender make the difference.
So the Leafs' task, therefore, is to emerge as the best team in the Eastern Conference, and the people in the front office see no reason they can't do that.
The Philadelphia Flyers are in their usual disarray; the New Jersey Devils have won just one playoff series since 1994; the Pittsburgh Penguins don't have the depth; the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins haven't won a game this season. Other teams, such as the Florida Panthers, New York Rangers, Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes are all dark horses.
So the attitude in the Maple Leafs front office is not that their team is favoured to emerge from the East, but that for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, it has a realistic chance of doing so.
Right now, there is not a single Eastern team that can point to its lineup and say, "We wouldn't have any trouble handling the Leafs."
A major reason for this is the emergence of some young players, especially Tomas Kaberle and Danny Markov. No team in hockey has two young defencemen of this calibre. In fact, some franchises are born and die without ever seeing two young defencemen with this much talent. In the National Hockey League, defence is the toughest position to fill. You can see it when national teams are selected. Goaltenders are easy to find and forwards are plentiful. But defencemen? There never seems to be enough of them.
Yet Markov and Kaberle are poised and capable. They can play in any situation and by doing so, elevate the play of the other defencemen.
They're certainly not the only reason the Leafs are a solid team. But at the start of last season, the impact to be made by Mats Sundin and Curtis Joseph, combined with the coaching of Pat Quinn was expected. What was relatively unexpected was the emergence of two top-notch NHL defencemen in such a short time.
Both Kaberle and Markov looked good last season, and this year, they've proved that it was not a fluke. Instead, it appears to have been merely the first step in careers that are destined to be memorable.
Add that to the fact Alyn McCauley has proved that if he can stay healthy, he is as solid a player as there is at his age, and the Leafs are in good shape.
It seems what the local left-wing broadsheet referred to as a "bare cupboard" when Cliff Fletcher left wasn't so bare after all. And let us not forget Anders Hedberg's discovery of Nikolai Antropov.
But despite all this, the Leafs still need some help to evolve into a true NHL power. They still need a checking line that can shut down the opposition's big guns. They need a bit more firepower from the left side.
But no longer is this a team trying to plug gaping holes. Instead, it's a matter of fine tuning. Dmitri Khristich is not the answer. He plays only when it suits him and usually it is not in the playoffs.
But there are -- and will be as the season goes on -- other players out there to help polish some of the Leafs' rough edges. And that is the way the front office is looking at it now.
The Leafs no longer see themselves a team in the building process. They now see themselves as a team that can make a run at the big prize this year.
And that is what they intend to do.

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