LEAFS DEAL FOR RAYCROFT; JAYS WIN!

Seriously, make sure the Knicks don't get nuclear capability. Because we'll all die.

There's one aspect of the Leafs draft-day move, trading Finnish goalie prospect Tuukka Rask to the Bruins for an established but still fairly young netminder in Andrew Raycroft (a former Kingston Frontenac, by the way), that is refreshing: it's so un-Leafs-like.

I had an e-mail tonight from a friend saying he rather like the idea of keeping Rask and fellow hotshot young netminder Justin Pogge, and seeing which one (if either) turns out to be a bona fine NHL netminder. That wouldn't have sucked.

However, for once the Leafs seem aware of their long-time blind spot with young prospects. Every team overhypes young players (to enhance their trade value), but the Leafs go to extremes, not only building up prospects into something they're not, but not doing enough to develop that young talent and turning around years later and getting mad at the player for making them look like a bunch of liars. (Case in point: Nik Antropov.)

That's what happens when you get an organization that thrives on covering its own ass and a fan base that will buy pretty much anything it's told. There are knowledgeably obsessive Leafs fans who almost make The Sons of Sam Horn seem like dilettantes.

Then there's what my friend Neil Acharya refers to as the "95 percent ratio" who name pets and children after Tie Domi, stand in line for Mark Osborne's autograph, drive down Yonge Street laying on their car horns after first-round playoff wins and call into the Fan 590 in the dog days of summer to take management's side whenever the inevitable announcement is made that ticket prices are, wait for it, going up next season. Many in this group can not only drink Molson Canadian without gagging, but consider it the nectar of the gods.

("I'm still going to buy lots of hockey tickets, these other people who are complaining aren't buying tickets, so who cares about their whining," was how one call went last summer. I did not make this up.)

Granted, that's the far end of the spectrum (and the shallow end of the gene pool, some might say), but the point is, the "95 percent ratio" inevitably drowns out the few rational members of Leafs Nation. They're not so much hockey fans or Leafs fans, and they will always blame the players first, rather than looking at the past decade of dubious draft-day decisions and wondering how you can expect to have a competitive team, long-term, when only six of your regulars are original draft picks.

Rask for Raycroft isn't a blockbuster deal and it's a bit of a consolation prize after losing out in the Luongo Sweepstakes but it's not butt-covering by Leafs GM John Ferguson. For one, with J.S. Aubin already signed, it probably makes it clear Ed Belfour will be bought out, even though Ferguson will hear it in the media for the dumb contract he signed him to before the 2004 lockout.

Rask is only 19, so he could conceivably stay in Finland this season, but it's a given the Toronto media will be monitoring the Internet as closely as possible, checking his stats as they try to build a case (even if there isn't one, someone will try anyway) that the Leafs dealt away the next Miikka Kiprusoff.

With Raycroft is coming off a bad year (.879 save percentage, loss of his starting job in Boston), there's going to be questions every day about whether he can be a No. 1 goalie on a playoff team. His numbers last year in Boston -- 8-19-2, 3.71 goals-against average -- look a little like the 6-16-1 and 3.00 figures Dwayne Roloson had in Minnesota before his move to the Oilers. Before last year's gong show in Boston, Raycroft won the Calder Trophy as the league's rookie of the year in '03-04.

The other caveat with Raycroft is his spotty play back in '04 when the Bruins lost in the first round to Montreal. That's also going to be analyzed to death, beginning today. The feeling here is that he did play his junior in Kingston, so he knows what it's like to have a mediocre team in front of you. So he's got that goin' for him, which is nice.

Meantime, at least the Leafs were willing to try something. It's a consolation prize after the Bertuzzi-Luongo deal, but there is a lot on the line with this deal -- including JFJ's job.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Vernon Wells' two-homer, four-RBI day paces the Jays to a 7-4 series-evening win over the Mets. Some fans came up with the brilliant idea of having "G" signs every time Roy Halladay gets a ground-ball out. He actually had only 10 today as he improve to 9-2 on the season.
  
  Now it's Josh Towers going against Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and David Wright this afternoon. As Carl Carlson said of Homer being the nuclear plant's safety inspector in the Frank Grimes episode of The Simpsons, "It's best not to think about it."
• My football hero Randy Moss has opened a juice bar, but he hasn't gone California -- it's in his native West Virginia.
• Can't think of better ending to the error-filled Edmonton-Calgary CFL game then the deciding play: with 48 seconds left, the Eskies' Shannon Garrett sealed the eventual 18-14 win with an end-zone interception made while in a sitting position. Calgary QB Henry Burris underthrew his receiver, but put the ball right in the lap of Garrett, who had fallen down while in coverage.
• Writing for Cracked, Jay Pinkerton gives us his list of the Greatest Guilty Pleasure Comedies. This proud owner of a VHS copy of Cabin Boy has a few humble nominations: Mean Girls, The New Guy, 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag and Fletch Lives. (No need to feel guilty about watching the first Fletch.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.