Are the Leafs getting Mats'd? Sundin to test Free Agency waters
Are the Leafs to get no compensation with the departure of Mats Sundin? He had until yesterday to make his decision, and yet puts things off and now his agent says that he'll take a dip into the Free Agent Pool.
Quote:
Sundin stall stiffs Cliff
Leafs' GM will look elsewhere
By LANCE HORNBY -- Sun Media
With Mats Sundin likely making all his suitors wait beyond tonight's midnight free-agent deadline, the Maple Leafs will move ahead and concentrate rebuilding efforts on trades and a lesser-known group of free agents in their late 20s.
General manager Cliff Fletcher will keep the porch light on one more night for Sundin, but likes neither of the options left for him by his indecisive captain. If he waits for Sundin's inner Leaf to emerge later this week, he loses out on first- and second-tier National Hockey League free agents. If he tries to replace him, he will risk overpaying in a seller's market for a limited number of impact centres.
"I haven't got the sense entirely that Mats (won't be a Leaf)," Fletcher said last night. "But you have to make other plans."
He had tried to prod Sundin by giving the Montreal Canadiens exclusive rights to negotiate a trade before tonight, a move that would have given the Leafs some kind of return if Sundin signed. But Sundin's agent, J.P. Barry, e-mailed the Montreal media last night to tell them Sundin hadn't made up his mind about playing at all, trying not to offend GM Bob Gainey's efforts to sell the Swede on the division champion Habs.
One report said Gainey was prepared to go as high as two years at $8 million US a season. But Gainey will look elsewhere after 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, while the Leafs' war room plots its own post-Mats strategy.
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Is Toronto going to get shafted? They couldn't trade him since he didn't want to accept the contract from Montreal (and from the there Toronto would be working out a deal for compensation). If you ask me, anything but staying with the Leafs for $4M-$5M or just retiring, is a stab in the back.
Whatever the case be there is no time for these shenanigans. This team is a mess and there is much to do.
Buh-bye Mats Sundin.
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"It's not the way it's going to be. We have to be very, very patient and build this the right way. We have to go through a process. It may be painful. I hope it isn't. But we're prepared for all the bumps and pratfalls and potholes in the road ahead. I'm prepared for it anyway, or I wouldn't have come." - Ron Wilson, Head Coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Last edited by BE-LEAF-ABLE : 06-30-2008 at 06:45 PM.
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