"After 11 troubled seasons of rarely living up to anyone's expectations, Tim Connolly enters the fishbowl that is Toronto hockey and almost certainly this will be either a grand new beginning or a painful end.

The opportunity for the skilled and underachieving centreman has never been so apparent. He will centre the Maple Leafs' first line with high scorer Phil Kessel playing to his right. He will either play the point or be the set up man on the Leafs' first power play. From the start, he will be afforded star minutes and be given every chance to be the man the Leafs have been lacking since Mats Sundin departed.

"What he does with the opportunity is the question," said Mike Milbury, who drafted Connolly with the New York Islanders. "When we took him, we were thrilled to get him. We thought he was the best player in the (1999) draft. We were glad some other players were taken before us (Patrik Stefan and Pavel Brendl, to name two). We thought, at 5, we were getting a great player. Man, could he dangle. What skill level..."

That's what everybody seems to say about Connolly before their voice drops off. What skill level ... and then they finish the sentence with "it's really too bad," or "it's a shame what's happened to him."

When you ask hockey people questions about Connolly the first thing they ask in return is: "Can we go off the record?" They want to tell you the story or at least their version of the story. They just don't want their names attached to the Maple Leafs' $9.5 million signing. Among the terms used to describe Connolly are: Soft. Sullen."