Leafs prepared to trade up for Tavares

TORONTO - For the second straight year, the Toronto Maple Leafs are slated to select seventh overall at the NHL entry draft. But when Brian Burke was asked whom he intends to choose, the general manager said John Tavares.

t sounded more like a warning than wishful thinking.

Though Tavares is expected to be chosen no later than second overall, Burke believes he has the resources - and reputation - to pull off a major coup and land the potential franchise forward.

"We're going to talk to everyone between us and the first pick and see what the landscape is," he said in a season-ending news conference at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday. "We're going to see what it costs, and we're going to try to move up."

The New York Islanders, who finished with the worst record in the regular season, won Tuesday night's draft lottery. They will pick first at the June 26 draft in Montreal, followed by Tampa Bay, Colorado, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Phoenix

The Leafs had the seventh overall pick last year, but were able to trade up and draft defenceman Luke Schenn at No. 5. Of course, improving by two positions is easier than six.

Burke's history of swinging successful draft-day deals - while GM of the Hartford Whalers in 1993, he moved up from sixth to second overall to select Chris Pronger - is the reason why he is being so candid about his intentions this summer.

"We're not going to ambush anyone," he said. "I've done this a couple of times. I'm not going to be able to sneak up on anyone, so we're just going to announce it today. If I thought there was a tactical advantage to doing this quietly, I wouldn't be telling you guys what the strategy is."

Burke's strategy is pretty straightforward.

Anyone not named Schenn is likely up for grabs. So, too, are the two second-round draft picks he acquired at the trade deadline. And, with Toronto operating well below the salary cap, the Leafs might also be willing to take back costly contracts.

"It's like farming," Burke said. "A lot of work goes into farming and the harvest only takes a couple of days. Well, it's like that with the draft."

Before Burke starts planting seeds, he first needs to find out whether teams prefer Tavares or six-foot-six Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman.

"I'm not confident that everyone has John Tavares at No. 1," he said. "If they're going to take a different guy, then you don't have to get the first pick. You have to talk to the people involved and see how candid they will be."

"We'll see what we can do."

Leafs in transition: So, now what?

The Maple Leafs are going to empty their lockers today, having missed the playoffs for the fourth season in a row. Coach Ron Wilson believes some of the building blocks of a winner have been put in place. Changes are sure to come. GM Brian Burke has said he wants the 2009-10 Leafs to challenge for a playoff spot. Wilson has warned there could be stretches next season that could be worse than this one, with the team expected to add anywhere up to six rookies.

The focus is making everybody better," said Wilson. "We want to be better than we were this year." Here's a thumbnail look, on a player-by-player basis, at how the team did this season; and its prognosis for next season. All contract figures are in U.S. dollars and expire after 2009-10 unless otherwise noted

GOALTENDERS

VESA TOSKALA

Contract: $4 million

Status: Gets a mulligan for playing the year hurt, but needs a strong start next season to keep his job.

MARTIN GERBER

Contract: Unrestricted free agent

Status: Played well enough down the stretch to land an NHL contract, but did himself no favours by getting suspended. Not likely to be back.

CURTIS JOSEPH

Contract: Unrestricted free agent

Status: Ever popular, but Leafs will look for a backup to push Toskala for the No.1 job.

JUSTIN POGGE

Contract: Restricted free agent

Status: Needs a strong playoff run with the Marlies to regain confidence of management.

DEFENCEMEN

PAVEL KUBINA

Contract: $5 million

Status: Puzzling penchant for forechecking explains his minus-15, worst among Leaf defencemen. Good offence, but if Tomas Kaberle's not moved it will be Kubina who's sent packing.

TOMAS KABERLE

Contract: $4.25 million per year until 2011

Status: Still the one Leaf who'd garner the biggest return on the trade market despite uneven season. ... Averaged 23:27 of ice time to lead the team.

JEFF FINGER

Contract: $3.5 million per season until 2012

Status: Erratic at times, but solid enough in own end. ... Led team with 158 blocked shots.

MIKE VAN RYN

Contract: $2.9 million

Status: The Leafs were 12-9-6 when he was in lineup and Wilson doesn't think that's a coincidence. Van Ryn is brittle, having last played a full season in 2006-07.

LUKE SCHENN

Contract: $2.975 million per year until 2011

Status: Here's hoping solid rookie avoids sophomore jinx. ... Led team in hits (206), giveaways (74).

JONAS FROGREN

Contract: $1.065 million

Status: Learned great deal in first year. ... Needs to stay healthy.

IAN WHITE

Contract: $850,000

Status: Won over the coach with solid play. Could replace Kaberle on power play. ... His plus-6 was tied for best on team; was only defenceman on plus side.

FORWARDS

JASON BLAKE

Contract: Three years remaining at $4.5 million, $3 million, $3 million.

Status: Rebounded from cancer, rediscovered his gritty side, learned to score again. ... Unmovable contract, will return. Wilson has to get him to be less selfish (302 shots again led team by wide margin.)

NIKLAS HAGMAN

Contract: $3 million per year until 2012

Status: Decent scorer, solid work ethic, good character. ... Can fill a gap on offence and, when someone better comes along, can be solid third-liner.

LEE STEMPNIAK

Contract: $2.5 million

Status: Figured out by Game 79 he has to work harder. Will be on a short leash next season.

ALEXEI PONIKAROVSKY

Contract: $2.105 million

Status: Thrived once Nik Antropov was traded and had career-high in points (61). ... Good one to keep around to help Grabovski and Kulemin.

MATT STAJAN

Contract: $1.75 million

Status: Stature rose in Wilson's eye, but best suited for third-line duty.

NIKOLAI KULEMIN

Contract: $1,487,500

Status: Loves to play in front of the net.

If he keeps doing that, he'll easily build on

his 15-goal rookie campaign.

JAMAL MAYERS

Contract: $1,333,333

Status: Wasn't quite the presence expected.

... Led team in faceoff circle, winning 57.3

per cent of his 429 draws.

CHRISTIAN HANSON

Contract: $875,000

Status: A year with the Marlies would help

him adjust to life in the pros.

JOHN MITCHELL

Contract: $487,500

Status: Had trouble keeping his game at a high tempo, but team brass see top-6 forward potential. ... His minus-16 would make him the clubhouse leader in golf but leaves something to be improved upon.

MIKHAIL GRABOVSKI

Contract: Restricted free agent.

Status: Has heart to go along with that talent. ... Tries to do too much by himself. ... Won only 44.5 per cent of faceoffs. ... Could use Kontinental Hockey League as bargaining chip.

BOYD DEVEREAUX

Contract: Unrestricted free agent

Status: Hard-working role player with speed should land a job somewhere.

BRAD MAY

Contract: Unrestricted free agent

Status: Popular in dressing room and Burke loves him, so don't be surprised if 37-year-old is back.

SUBS AND GRUBS

Jeff Hamilton, Tim Stapleton, Anton Stralman, Jamie Sifers,

Phil Oreskovic, Erik Reitz

Leafs sign top college prospect

The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won much this season, but they have landed the services of Tyler Bozak.

Bozak, considered one of the top free agents to come out of university hockey, signed with the Leafs on Friday, ending several days of speculation where the talented centreman would end up.

The 23-year-old native of Regina had eight goals and 15 assists in 19 games this season with the University of Denver Pioneers, his second season with the NCAA school. He missed more than half the year with a knee injury.

More than 20 National Hockey League teams were reportedly interested in signing Bozak, who went undrafted. Reports Thursday suggested he'd narrowed his choice to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Colorado and Anaheim.

Toronto GM Brian Burke said he was happy with the acquisition.

"We are absolutely thrilled that Tyler has chosen to sign with the Maple Leafs today," said Burke. "He is a young man that was coveted by a large number of teams in our league and it's our goal to help him reach his potential with our organization. He's a responsible player at both ends of the ice and he has shown the ability to put points on the board with his quickness at the collegiate level."

Bozak, who spent three seasons with Victoria of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League prior to joining the Pioneers in 2007-08, had 18 goals and 16 assists in his rookie college season.

Considered a strong two-way centre, Bozak is considered to have the potential to step into the NHL next season.

Hanson jumps up as Stempniak struggles

While there was much ballyhoo over Christian Hanson preparing to make his NHL debut tonight - mostly due to his father's fame as a Slap Shot Hanson Brother - Lee Stempniak quietly went about his business.

Hanson was a bundle of nerves as he packed his things for his first NHL road trip.

"I'm ecstatic right now, but getting on the ice and playing the game will be another level," said Hanson. "I've got some butterflies in the stomach and I think it will really hit me when I get on for that first shift."

Hanson has suddenly been saddled with some high expectations. GM Brian Burke identified him as a top-six forward - a big deal for the kind of team Burke wants to build - and Hanson will start on one of the Leafs' top lines with John Mitchell and Jason Blake.

"I think that shows they have confidence in me," said Hanson. "I hope to fill those expectations."

Stempniak knows all about expectations. He has some pretty high ones for himself that he's failed to meet. Stempniak has just 15 goals this season, well short of his career-best 27 in 2006-07.

"I definitely expected better," said Stempniak, who had a goal and an assist in a rare two-point performance on Wednesday. "I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well. I expected better numbers and to contribute more offensively."

That was the idea when the Leafs surrendered forward Alex Steen and defenceman Carlo Colaiacovo for Stempniak in a 2-for-1 trade with St. Louis.

"I had no idea what to expect coming to a new team," said Stempniak. "I'd never been traded before. I just wanted to fit in as quickly as possible and try and help the Leafs win games."

The question is will he have a place next season? Stempniak has another year on his contract, due to earn $3.5 million (all figures U.S.) next season, a year in which the Leafs already have $44 million committed to 17 players.

"He's been inconsistent," said coach Ron Wilson. "We brought him in to score and he hasn't scored as much as we hoped. He hasn't been a defensive liability, and he's competed hard every night."

He's moved from line to line, rarely staying with the same centre for more than a handful of games.

Lately, he's been paired with Matt Stajan, whose offence has tailed off, and will be joined tonight by Niklas Hagman with Boyd Devereaux shunted down the depth chart.

Hanson a late bloomer

New Maple Leaf Christian Hanson isn't a budding prospect with fond memories from draft day.

"I was extremely disappointed," he recalls of being passed over by the NHL as a teenager.

"The worst part of it was the NHL had camera crews in my house. They ended up making a TV show out of it. Aside from the fact I didn't get drafted - which was a pretty big bummer to begin with - from the next year on ... before the game of the week there'd be an NHL draft special and half of it would be about me."

Hanson, now 23 with a Notre Dame education to fall back on, was signed as a free agent to a two-year entry level contract by the Maple Leafs yesterday.

"It's almost like getting a free first-round draft pick," said Leafs coach Ron Wilson.

Hanson wasn't drafted in 2005 despite being ranked 66th among North American skaters by NHL's Central Scouting. Instead, as a heavily recruited centre, he joined the Fighting Irish.

Oddly enough for a son of one of the famed Hanson brothers, Christian wasn't tough enough.

Not at first anyway.

A classic late bloomer, it was in Hanson's junior year, after finally following through on coach Jeff Jackson's urging to play more physical around the net - something you'd expect from a 6-foot-4, 230-pounder - that he burst out with some decent production.

He scored 13 goals, picked up 22 points, and demonstrated he might be able to take his game to a higher level.

"I prodded him for two years to get him to play with a little bit more jam," recalled Jackson yesterday.

"He came in and he relied on his skill and a kid that size is going to be challenged, so he had to learn to play with a little bit more edge to his game from an offensive perspective. He had a tendency to sit back and play more on the perimeter and I really pushed him hard to try to get more involved."

Hanson finished with 16 goals and 31 points in 37 games in his senior year, totals aided by Jackson's decision to use him as a big man in front of the net on power plays.

Six of his goals came on the power play.

"We watched a lot of film of (Detroit's) Tomas Holmstrom and tried to get an idea how (Hanson) could use his reach and his size and his hands in tight, and he did a really good job of that," said Jackson.

But there is no guarantee his growth as a player in South Bend, Ind., will translate into success in the NHL.

But the fact the Leafs are aggressively pursuing college free agents such as Hanson, University of Denver's Tyler Bozak and defenceman Matt Gilroy, once Boston University's season is over, can only be viewed as a positive.

Especially when Hanson chose Toronto ahead of at least a half dozen other suitors.

"If you sign two or three college players and one of them develops to the point where he's good enough to contribute at the NHL level, it's a real bonus," said Leafs advisor Cliff Fletcher, who had three college free agents - Jamie Macoun, Colin Patterson and Joel Otto - on his Calgary team when the Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989.

Jackson believes Hanson has a "legitimate chance" to make it as an NHLer "if he can get that mental toughness to be a consistent thing for him."

Though Wilson said patience will be important - "Christian is not going to come in and play five games and score 15 goals or points" - an indication of his potential will come when he makes his debut, possibly as early as Friday in Philadelphia against the Flyers.

Burke drafts his plan for Leafs

As with any major construction project, it takes a while to see the results.

But, yesterday, as general manager Brian Burke continued the teardown of the Maple Leafs, he added some valuable bricks and mortar for the foundation of a squad that will eventually be more competitive, possibly as early as next season.

Burke didn't get the No.1 draft pick he coveted; an austere market didn't allow for that kind of home run. But, by moving out Dominic Moore and Nik Antropov, two players headed for unrestricted free agency, the GM bulked up his stock of draft picks.

He also didn't take on any additional contracts that carry into next season, so he should have about $17 million (all figures U.S.) to spend this summer even though he already has 16 players under contract. That should allow for some quick rebuilding either through free agency or the ability to trade for contracts.

"We're positioned well from a cap standpoint. I think you folks know I'm not big on doing nothing. We intend to be aggressive this summer on a lot of different fronts," Burke said.

The Leafs also shut down red-hot goaltender Vesa Toskala for the rest of the season so he could undergo hip and groin surgery. He'll be replaced by ineffective Senators netminder Martin Gerber, who was claimed on re-entry waivers as a stop-gap measure.

Toronto, then, has weakened itself considerably by removing two of its top four scorers and its No.1 goaltender.

That, despite Burke's protests that his team will strive to win every game, will make victories difficult down the stretch.

But it should lift the value of Toronto's No.1 pick, possibly giving the team a shot at top prospect John Tavares in the lottery.

Beyond that top pick, the draft will hold much intrigue for Leaf fans this year. Toronto went from having two picks in the first four rounds to having five, with the possibility of a sixth.

"This is an opportunity to put some draft picks back into the hopper. It was an important part of the rebuilding process here," Burke said.

He sent Moore to Buffalo for a second-round pick and Antropov to the New York Rangers, also for a second-rounder. There is the possibility of an additional fourth-round pick coming Toronto's way in the Antropov deal should the Rangers win two playoff rounds.

In one of the more creative deals of the day, Burke essentially traded cap space to Tampa for a fourth-round pick. The Leafs sent the Lightning minor-league defenceman Richard Petiot for three injured players with expiring contracts (goaltender Olaf Kolzig, Jamie Heward and Andy Rogers) plus a fourth-round pick. For covering off the remainder of those contracts, an amount in the area of $500,000, the Leafs get that additional pick.

"The trainer is not going to have to tape my wrists from doing cartwheels, but I'm pleased with what was done," Burke said.

In addition to claiming Gerber, who also has an expiring contract, the Leafs picked up hard-nosed defenceman Erik Reitz on re-entry waivers from the New York Rangers. The 26-year-old from Detroit played 42 games for Minnesota and New York this season, picking up a goal, an assist and 65 penalty minutes.

Reitz is currently wearing a walking cast after taking a shot off his ankle. He could be ready to play as early as this weekend, but his absence gives a temporary reprieve to Jonas Frogren who was going to be demoted yesterday. Reitz becomes a restricted free agent this summer and the Leafs will have a chance to evaluate him down the stretch.

The Leafs did send forward Tim Stapleton back to the Marlies yesterday.

The team also announced that defenceman Tomas Kaberle will be out 10 days to two weeks after suffering another injury in his right hand. He's just back from missing a month with a broken bone in that hand.

Leafs' prospect blossoms in NCAA

It is the great Canadian dream, to grow up to be an NHL star. But there are hockey dreamers in other countries, and Viktor Stalberg was one of them.

Little Viktor, and he was little back then, used to imagine leaving Sweden for a life in the National Hockey League. It was all he wanted to do. Kids, though, become teenagers. Expectations change. And Stalberg's dreams grew less grand as the years passed. Playing for Frolunda in Sweden's top junior league, his teammates and his opponents kept getting bigger while little Viktor stayed small.

"Until I was 16 years old, I was probably one of the better players in my region, if not in all of Sweden," Stalberg says. "But I just didn't grow. Guys I played with were all 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds, and I was 5-foot-7."

Size matters, even in Sweden, and so Frolunda cut the pint-sized forward loose. Stalberg downgraded his dreams from wanting to play in the best league in the world to hopefully, with some luck, landing a scholarship to an NCAA Division III school.

But while he was waiting for a U.S. college to call, little Viktor began to grow. Now, Viktor Stalberg is a 6foot-3, 200-pound Division I star at the University of Vermont, and a candidate for the Hobey Baker Award given to the top player in the U.S. college game. He is also dreaming again, about playing in the NHL.

"Do I think Viktor is ready to play in the NHL right now? Probably not," Vermont's head coach Kevin Sneddon says. "But the bottom line is, he is 6-foot-3 and the fastest skater in college hockey. He has a quick-release shot, and there are a lot of parts to his game that are already at the NHL level. I think the Leafs are going to be very happy to have him some day. I just hope that day isn't too soon."

The Toronto Maple Leafs picked the late blooming Swede in the sixth round of the 2006 NHL draft. Sixthround draft picks are not supposed to pan out. They are hockey's 100-1 shots. When the talking heads make declarations about the Leafs' cupboards being bare, the sixth-round picks are not even considered.

But maybe on the bottom shelf in the back corner of the Leafs' cupboards there is a big Swede waiting. Dallas Eakins, Toronto's director of player development, has made multiple visits to Vermont this season to watch Stalberg play.

"I think it was Viktor I went to see my very first weekend on the road," Eakins says. "What struck me was that you'd be sitting there, and Viktor would come out for his first shift and you'd be like, 'Oh man, this is a very good player at the college level.' And then you'd be sitting there and thinking, did I just miss three rounds of shifts, because you wouldn't see him. He would disappear, and then he would come back and give you another teaser shift."

Eakins told Stalberg to stop being a tease. He wanted him to be assertive, and to believe that he was the best player out there every shift - and not just every fourth shift - because he was the best player out there when he wanted to be.

It was the same message Stalberg kept hearing from his coach.

"They want me to keep using my speed as much as possible and to really focus on being a threat every time I step on the ice," says the 23year-old.

Stalberg has a 3.6 grade point average, and is majoring in business administration - not basket weaving - and so he took the instructions to heart. As soon as he did, the pucks started going in and Vermont began climbing in the NCAA polls. Stalberg currently leads the Hockey East Division with 20 goals and 36 points in 32 games.

"This is my first year here where I have had a player that is so dominant," Sneddon says.

The Leafs know about big, dominant Swedes. In fact, Mats Sundin is Stalberg's favourite player.

But big Viktor Stalberg, the late bloomer, may need a few more years to grow.

"He is a standout player on his team, and he is somebody if you went to a game you would notice him, and he is on the right track," says Eakins. "But development for these guys is like climbing a mountain. You don't just go straight up. You go up a little bit, and then you go down through a valley to get to the next rise. And he has had his ups and downs, but he continues to climb that mountain."