With the rebuild underway in Toronto with the Maple Leafs it would seem appropriate that their AHL farm tean, the Toronto Marlies, undergo a corresponding change to fit the new philosphy of the team. Now some may be thinking who cares about the Marlies, it's the Leafs that matter, to those of that mindset LRT has just one question for you - would you expect a house built without a solid foundation to stand for very long?

It seems as though it has been decades since the Leafs last had a farm team that one could watch and actually see several players that have the potential to become major parts of the NHL club in the near future. This was in part due to the fact that the Leafs traded away most of their prospects and draft picks in exchange for veteren talent for the NHL club, and in part due to the fact that the team seemed to want to use the farm team as a place to give old players who could no longer cut it at the NHL level a place to play hockey.

Well in the last year and a half things have changed, the team is no longer interested in morgaging it's future to stumble into a playoff spot and is instead building from the ground up with a young, fast and exciting team. Whether or not they can avoid the urge they seemingly have had in the past to provide employment to players that don't fit the team's plans any longer will be a real test of just how commited they are to this rebuild going forward.

With that being said let us present the 2009-2010 LRT Marlie Overhaul Project. An overhaul of a franchise at the AHL level is far more simple to accomplish than it is at the NHL level due to several factors. First of all, the AHL is not subject to the restrictions and constraints of the NHL's salary cap. As a result, players can be "bought out" or demoted to lower levels without punishment. Another factor that makes an overhaul in philosophy for a farm team easier to obtain is the relative lack of media scruteny and fan pressure that a clubs find at the NHL level during such a process. The Leafs could change the entire Marlies roster and the majority of the hockey media in Toronto wouldn't even notice until someone pointed it out to them. Combine that with the lack of a fan base for the Marlies in Toronto and it means that fan backlash over player movement is virtually non-existent. There are obviously a lot of other factors that make reconstructing the Marlies a much easier task than rebuilding the Leafs but that goes without saying. The point is that the Marlies can be changed from a mediocre farm team consisting of mostly players with no hope of ever playing full time in the NHL and a sprinkling of former NHLers that can no longer play at a high level, into a young, fast and exciting team made up of young prospects with the potential to play in the NHL within the next 2 years and who can push the Leaf players currently on the NHL roster to perform at their best in order to keep their spots on the big club.

What's that you say? You want proof that it can be done? Well you've come to the right place, LRT has assembled a 2009-2010 Marlies roster conisting of serveral good young prospects in the Leafs system that they have accumulated over the last 5 years, combined them with the younger players that excelled at the AHL level with the Marlies last season and mixed in a light sprinkling of veteren talent that the Leafs might actually want to recall if there were injuries. In doing so, LRT has created a Marlies team that Leaf fans might actually go and see play at the Ricoh Coluseum in order to get a look at the players that have a shot at being a part of the rebuild.