From the Press Box: Budding Leafs Give Fans Hope

What a difference a year makes in one of the world's most rabid hockey markets. During the 2014-2015 season, the Leafs seemed to be the butt of every joke as the ugly losses mounted and fans routinely booed with displeasure, not to mention their littering of the Air Canada Centre's ice surface with waffles, paper airplanes and sundry other objects. More troubling than that, a number of fans took Leafs sweaters off their backs and tossed them onto the ice with regularity. It seemed that the new management team, headed by freshly installed team president Brendan Shanahan, was offering no hope.

We fast forward to this season and the mood around the club is very different, even if the on-ice record is going to be similar to last season. The Leafs' management group has stuck to its rebuilding plan in a fashion that hasn't been seen in these parts for many years.

The first part of the blueprint was to clean up salary-cap issues by moving some onerous contracts. At the top of that list was Phil Kessel, who was dealt in the offseason for some nice future pieces, including a conditional 2016 first-round pick (if the Penguins make the upcoming playoffs, and they will) in addition to Pittsburgh's first-round pick in the 2014 draft, Kasperi Kapanen. Later, they found a way to dispose of David Clarkson's contract by moving him for the injured Nathan Horton, whose cap hit is similar in cost and term. The Leafs had no qualms about making this move because they can keep Horton on long-term injured reserve and his contract won't count against the cap. This season, they completed the trifecta when they dealt captain Dion Phaneuf to Ottawa for a package of current players, prospects and picks. All told, while they did assume some pro contracts in return, they only retained an additional $1.2 million annual cap hit for a portion of Kessel's remaining deal (four years).

The net result is a record haul of 12 draft picks for the upcoming amateur draft and an unprecedented amount of cap space ahead of the July 1 free agency period.

Thus the doom and gloom has been replaced by optimism and hope, which has been fueled by the recent cameo appearances of the organization's top prospects. Leading the way is William Nylander, who has shown that he is ready for prime time, quickly getting acclimatized in his first 12 games with the big club -- including a five-point outburst over the last two Along with him, the Leafs have brought up no fewer than 15 players at various times in the last few weeks, giving them their first taste of the NHL.

Fans are also well aware of the club's top junior prospect, Mitch Marner, who is tearing up the OHL with the London Knights.

Never in recent memory has a group of young players provided such optimism for a legion of long-suffering Leafs fans. Now if they can only win the upcoming draft lottery and bring in the highly regarded Auston Matthews, they'll really be set up. Failing that, they're in position to add at least a couple top prospects out of the 12 choices they have in hand.

The Stars are doing it their own way

While the Leafs are finally embracing the tried-and-true building method that has served teams like Los Angeles and Chicago so well in recent years (and a host of other teams before them), Stars GM Jim Nill has augmented his solid drafting practices with a number of shrewd trades that have his club battling for the top rung in the Central Division.

He's acquired several of their most high-profile pieces in a series of trades over the last few years. Consider that he plucked Tyler Seguin out of Boston at a time when the Bruins had grown wary of the 2010 No. 2 pick's off-ice activities. He thus filled the Stars' need for a No. 1 center and accomplished that goal when a number of other clubs were in the same search. Seguin has taken advantage of his opportunity to play big minutes at his natural position, an opportunity that never came his way in Boston. Nill soon doubled down when he looked to Ottawa and found a similar circumstance last year, when Senators management determined that Jason Spezza was not likely to succeed Daniel Alfredsson as the premier player in Canada's capital. Those two trades have given the Stars about as potent a 1-2 punch at center as there is in the league.

Nill also solidified the club in other key areas, adding Antti Niemi to the goalie mix with longtime starter Kari Lehtonen. This move to add a Stanley Cup-winning netminder was viewed as something of a luxury, but the two veterans have ensured that Dallas has an experienced hand in goal every night, which pays the biggest dividend when the schedule gets busy with back-to-back games and road trips. In the second deal, he reeled in another key offensive piece, bringing Patrick Sharp in to fill another top-six position.

Apart from these moves, he has added a few other experienced pieces that have conspired to bring this roster to its current place as one of the strongest teams in the Western Conference.

The underlying key in Nill's efforts has been flexibility under the salary cap, as the Stars were not spending to the maximum initially and took advantage of their excess capacity when these opportunities came available.

The sum of these transactions has the Stars poised for serious contention in the upcoming playoffs – even with Seguin's Achilles injury.

Big changes coming in Ottawa

All was quiet in Ottawa for much of this season. In fact, the biggest news for much of this season revolved around Bryan Murray's insistence on continuing his normal duties as the Senators' GM despite coping with a prostate cancer diagnosis. On the ice, this club was on the cusp of playoff contention for much of the season, and when they pulled the trigger on a major trade that brought Dion Phaneuf into the fold, it became apparent that they were going for it. When I first heard of this trade, I found it surprising that the Ottawa club absorbed Phaneuf's entire remaining contract while the Leafs took back some short-term contracts with comparable cap hits that will soon expire. This smacked of a desperate attempt by Ottawa. Why else would this Sens deal with their hated rivals from Toronto?

Now that we're near the end of the regular season and Phaneuf is out indefinitely with a lower-body injury, it's clear that the Sens won't qualify for the postseason. Owner Eugene Melnyk's outburst in the media this week is a clear indicator that sweeping changes will take place in the summer months.

Upon review, Ottawa has shown itself to be flawed in some basic aspects. They play a risky style that's typified in the stat line of their captain, Erik Karlsson. The Swedish superstar has recorded a plus-2 rating, but it's made up of a plus-20 in home games and a minus-18 on the road. That's a horrific disparity for the club's best player. The Senators have emulated the offense-first mentality of their captain, and that lack of attention to defense has them allowing more shots than any other club in the NHL.

Furthermore, as any knowledgeable hockey fan knows, playoff-bound teams tighten things up defensively late in the regular season to prepare for the postseason marathon. Adding Phaneuf wasn't going to help in that regard. He was a risky addition who was expected to help at both ends of the rink, but his eight points and minus-3 rating in 20 games with the Senators haven't made a difference.

This regime went all-in, and it didn't work out at all. So now it looks like Ottawa is going to have to scrap this plan and make some drastic changes.