jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) (12/11/84)
I found Carlo's comments about the Leafs' defensemen very interesting, though
I don't agree completely. I agree that they have a lot of excellent young
prospects who could be future stars, but I don't think they'll amount to
anything unless management does something soon. You can't throw a bunch
of young defensemen onto a last place team and expect them to do everything
themselves and come out of it without ruining their confidence completely.
They need one or two good, experienced two-way defensemen to help bring
them along. Salming fits the bill except that I don't think he's much of
a leader and he seems to get injured an awful lot, and I don't think he'll
last much longer, especially on such a terrible team, but you can tell how
much the rest of the guys need his experience because they fall completely
apart whenever he's injured. I was very upset when Dave Maloney got traded
to Buffalo because he's a guy that the Leafs should have got. I figured
he was available, and the Rangers were the team the Leafs had the best chance
of making a deal with because of their surplus of experienced defensemen,
their poor record over the last month or so, the fact that they're in a
different division, and they have been mentioned in the past as a team that
might be interested in Salming, plus they're weak on right wing, so they
might be willing to give up a lot to get Rick Vaive.
--
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073
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