The day the Leafs turned down the deal of the century.

The Maple Leafs have had a bad couple of seasons, with their core group of players failing to perform season after season. In fact it's been so long since they've won a Cup that the majority of their fan base wasn't alive to witness a championship in Toronto. Through all of this Leafs fans remained loyal, almost ot a fault. However this season the team reached an all time low, both in terms of the ice product and the overall reaction from fans, it's been one public relations mess after another for Toronto. To make matters worse a picture began making the rounds on the internet today, it features notes jotted down in a magazine by a young man  during the 2009 NHL draft. Those notes state that Brian Burke claimed he could of exchanged Nazem Kadri and Luke Schenn for of all players John Tavares.  Yes that John Tavares.  Brian Burke has demonstrated that he's a solid NHL General Manager but there is no question he made a massive error in judgement on that fateful day. Now rest assured we're not just taking someone's word for it, we've tracked down the video of the incident, and at about the 5:00 minute mark you can see Brian Burke on the Panel with his new player and he does in fact make that very statement. One has to believe that had the Leafs acquired John Tavares we could be seeing a much different on ice product in Toronto. For starters Burke would of never felt the need to pull the trigger on a deal that brought Phil Kessel to Toronto if he already had a #1 forward like Tavares on his squad. The core in Toronto could have looked something like John Tavares, Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton instead of a core that includes Phil Kessel, James Van Riemsdyk and Nazem Kadri. Can you imagine what Tavares and Seguin would have looked like on the same line together in Toronto? Instead the Leafs are now facing yet another rebuild.