Not much hope for my beloved Leafs.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night who is a fan of the hated Montreal Canadiens and he asked my why the Leafs didn't make any big moves at the trade deadline (and no, reacquiring Luke Richardson is not a big move). My answer was that there wasn't a hell of a lot they could do. Their biggest asset is Ed Belfour and he is a 40 year old goalie who hasn't had a great year. They can't really trade Bryan McCabe because they have to resign him this off season to make it look like Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), the corporation that runs the Leafs and Raptors, gives a damn about putting a winning team on the ice. I say that because MLSE is first and foremost a business, majority owned by the Ontario teacher's pension fund. The teachers pension fund is the richest pension fund in the world, and it didn't get that way by accident. It is extremely well managed and continually makes excellent business decisions. Which bring me to the Leafs current situation. In the last few years the Leafs were just good enough to have an outside shot at winning the Stanley Cup. The also generated enough revenues that they could trade whatever young talent they had (and since they have drafted so poorly in the last 15 years there wasn't even much of that) for older veterans that could be counted on in the playoffs. Many of those veterans than departed and when the salary cap was implemented it left the team with an old roster without enough young talent to be a really good team. Here's the rub though, while the cap hurt the team, it was the best possible thing for MLSE. Leaf hockey in Toronto is a religion the same way Red Sox baseball is in Boston and Packer football is in Green Bay. The Leafs could go 0-84 and still sell out every game and not lose any viewers for TV telecasts. Their season ticket renewal rate is 99.9%. Therefore, the cap essentially makes MLSE an extra $30 million a year off of the Leafs. Since Leaf revenues are essentially maxed out as it is, there is very little incentive for MLSE to put together a Cup contender. As a result, MLSE sees the NBA's Raptors as the better potential for increasing their revenues. MLSE currently puts about 65-70% of their operating resources into the Raptors, Exhibit A being the signing of Bryan Colangelo as their new GM and paying him a reported $3million a year. So as much as it kills fans like me, expect Leaf GM John Ferguson Jr. to keep talking about making moves to improve the team, tinkering with the roster by making small adjustments and signing name players well past their prime, but never really making the team a true contender.