from Damien Cox of Sportsnet,

Tear this thing right down and start over.

Start over? START OVER?? Again? You can hear the groaning of Leaf Nation when that’s even suggested.

But there’s really no choice, and to think otherwise is to pretend....

The team appears to own one young player, Morgan Rielly, who has the earmarks of both stardom and leadership, and that’s it. Outside of Rielly, there are young promising players, but not enough of them.

This isn’t a franchise that owns Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar and just needs Justin Williams and Mike Richards to join in and point the way to a championship.

So to build a championship team with the Leafs, priority No. 1 has to be to find other players similar to Rielly, or better.

more