There are few things on this planet guarded as well as Fort Knox. Some members of the local media could have you believe that the inner hockey offices of the Air Canada Centre are similarly guarded. 

There also are few organizations which operate as secretly as a nation's counter-espionage unit. Yet, these same media members would have you believe that the Leafs hockey brass operates in the like manner. 

And, unfortunately, there are too many governments and sports organizations in this country which operate without any sort of long-term planning and pre-decision research. Well, you guessed it, these same media members count the Leafs as the poster child for those types of organizations. 

Since I happen to know some of the individuals involved, I decided to see for myself. When I walked into the Maple Leafs' "war room," I was accompanied by assistant general manager Mike Penny and "lieutenant video" Reid Marshall. 

I immediately was drawn to a wall full of stickers with names of NHL and minor-league players on them. I also noticed a big book -- a really BIG book -- larger than the tennis book written by Bud Collins and published in Canada by Wayne Parrish, former general manager of The Toronto Sun. 

I peeked in the book, which was put together by Mitchell and entitled "NHL Draft Analysis 1990-2002." I couldn't quite make up my mind as to whether it was an encyclopedia, or a super-sized edition of the Bible. 

"It's both," said Penny, who had just returned from a painful visit to the dentist. "I am not suggesting it's 100% accurate, but it is certainly 99% accurate." 

To list the hundreds of entries from all 30 teams would take up the entire space available today in the sports section. So, I decided to go over the Leafs' entries and find out just what coach/GM Pat Quinn, Penny and Mitchell had or had not been doing all summer. 

The first stat to hit my eyes was Quinn's coaching record over the past five years. Quinn's Leafs have amassed regular-season point totals of 97, 100, 90, 100 and 98 during his current tenure as coach. There are very few teams in the NHL who can lay claim to those type of numbers. 

At this point I was thinking three things: First, that I was in the "war room;" second, that all the information was readily available to an outsider; third, that the real complaint on the lips of every Toronto hockey fan is that their beloved Buds haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967. 

So, what about the third issue? 

Report summaries in the book confirmed that research and analysis was, and is indeed, happening. 

A focal point for analysis by the Leafs brass centred on the percentage of players drafted during the period who subsequently played at least 100 games in the NHL. 

Surprisingly, the Carolina Hurricanes were on top, with 25 of their 116 drafted players, or 21.6%, breaking the century mark for NHL games played. 

The Hurricanes were followed by the Vancouver Canucks (27 of 127, 21.3%) and the San Jose Sharks (24 of 113, 21.2%). The other top-five clubs were the New Jersey Devils (31 of 147, 21.0%) and Colorado Avalanche (30 of 149, 20.1%) 

And where were the Leafs, you might ask? The Buds landed in the marginal territory of 17th overall with a record of 20 of 132, or 15.2%. And there may lie one of the key reasons that the team hasn't won the Stanley Cup in recent memory. 

With the exception of the Sharks, all the teams noted above played in the Stanley Cup final in the past 10 years, and New Jersey and Colorado have won it all multiple times. 

This particular analysis gets even worse for the Leafs for players drafted in the past five years who have managed to play at least 50 NHL games. Surprisingly Colorado (nine) and New Jersey (seven) are the top two, even though both were slated to draft very late in each round because of their high regular-season finishes. Not surprisingly, the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning also had seven players. 

The Leafs? I had to pull out my magnifying glass because they were in LAST place with ONE player making the grade. 

Since the larger slice of players in the 1990-2002 period was drafted prior to Quinn's arrival, it is difficult to pin the entire blame on him and his staff. However, the past five years do present a bit of a problem that is being analyzed carefully. 

Players such as Tomas Kaberle, Nik Antropov, Karel Pilar, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Carlo Colaiacovo, Mikael Tellqvist, Matt Stajan, Alexander Steen, Luca Cereda and a few others may yet prove that the Leafs have a plan. 

In some cases, decisions are made that affect statistics such as those above. The most notable would be trading Alyn McCauley and Brad Boyce to San Jose in order to get Owen Nolan. The impact and benefits of that trade will not be known for a few years. The Leafs got a bona fide stud. They gave up one player who already would have counted positively in the five-year percentage (even though he was originally drafted by New Jersey) and one who probably will. 

My "sneak peek" time was up. No digital cameras were allowed, nor video recorders. Minimal note-taking was permitted. It is now clear that the inner sanctum could be penetrated, information could be gathered from supposedly secret places and work and analysis was being carried on. 

Though the place wasn't guarded as well as Fort Knox, it certainly was guarded better than the hallways of the Prime Minister's home.