The 2008 NHL entry draft has, incrementally, become a more crucial element in the future of the Maple Leafs over the past seven months.

Primarily, of course, there’s the progress of blueliner Luke Schenn, the fifth pick that year. But having picked up forward Joe Colborne (the 16th pick) from Boston and defenceman Jake Gardiner (17th overall) from Anaheim last winter, that draft could make a pivotal difference in the development of the Leafs into a better hockey club.

At least with Colborne and Gardiner, the Leafs have more time to assess their potential value. Colborne is one year into his three-year entry-level contract; Gardiner is just starting on his.

For Schenn, it’s a rather different scenario because of the flawed decision three years ago to break him into the NHL as an 18-year-old defenceman.

Forget for a moment whether that has helped or hindered his progress as a young defenceman learning the game. Understand, instead, that the blueliner picked before him, Alex Pietrangelo, has two years left on his contract, two more years before the St. Louis Blues have to make a decision on his second contract.

St. Louis has the luxury of watching Pietrangelo’s future unfold more gradually, an exciting process given the way he took a giant step forward last season.

With Schenn, the Leafs are trying to negotiate his second pro contract off the sometimes contradictory evidence of his first three NHL seasons.

The problem with the current NHL contract structure is that for top draft picks in particular, there is no intermediate step; they jump right from their entry-level deal to gigantic dollars, in the extreme something like the five-year, $37.5 million (all figures U.S.) pact recently awarded to Steve Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The fear of offer sheets fuelled this trend, as teams sought to lock up their best young players, and agents made them pay for the privilege.

So Los Angeles, to name one team, is in a quandary as it assesses the dollars it wants to throw at Drew Doughty, the second overall pick in the ’08 draft. The Kings think they have a star, but last season delivered a few second thoughts on that front, enough that Dean Lombardi has some serious thinking and negotiating to do.

With Schenn, the financial commitment won’t be as onerous. But it will almost certainly be for multiple years and for upwards of $10 million in total, depending on the term, so this isn’t as easily digestible as giving goalie James Reimer three years at $1.8 million per season.

In a perfect world, perhaps the Leafs would be able to buy time with, say, a two-year deal along the lines of the contract ($2.6 million cap hit) St. Louis gave the first pick of the ’06 draft, Erik Johnson, before trading him and that contract to Colorado.

But such a short-term arrangement isn’t likely to have much appeal to the Schenn camp. He has four seasons to go before unrestricted free agency, and the guessing is agent Don Meehan would love to see Schenn earn an average of $4 million until then, before having his contract expire after the fourth season.

The Leafs, with assistant GM Claude Loiselle in charge of the negotiation, probably want a salary that starts in the $2.5 million to $3 million range, with the term either three years — one short of Schenn’s unrestricted season — or five years, which means the club would effectively be buying one year of that UFA status.

So this becomes a subtle dance between the two camps, even more delicate given that Doughty hasn’t signed. Neither has Winnipeg defenceman Zach Bogosian (third overall in ’08) and Pietrangelo’s next negotiation is still two seasons off. The comparables are either unhelpful or non-existent at this point.

Right now, it appears Schenn will, if the Leafs become a good hockey club, be a perfect No. 4 on the depth chart. That said, Dion Phaneuf, Keith Aulie, Carl Gunnarsson and newcomer Cody Franson are all still developing along with Schenn, not to mention Gardiner and Jesse Blacker, so this will take some time to shake out.

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As well, the Leafs know both Aulie and Franson will be in the same position as Schenn, coming off their entry-level contracts, next summer. Agents for those players, you can bet, will be looking closely at the numbers Schenn receives.

All of this makes it more complicated to assign a contractual value to Schenn. It will get done, but there’s a great deal of haggling left to do.

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