How about those fucking Toronto Maple Leafs! Brian Burke is awesome! To Toronto: Dion Phaneuf, Freddie Sjostrom and Keith Aulie To Calgary: Nik Hagman, Matt Stajan, Jamal Mayers and Ian White Also reporting they are getting a first round pick back: To TOR: JS Giguere + 1st RD Pick (likely Philly's from the Pronger trade) To ANA: Vesa Toskala What a day to be a Leaf phan(euf)
Great moves all around any way to get rid of Blake and Toskala is good by me. I also heard some rumours that if Kaberle wishes to wave his no trade clause a deal could happen that bring Mike Ribeiro to Toronto for Kaberle and Poni. Burke says he wont ask Kaberle to wave out of respect but I have a feeling that Kaberle will see some reduced ice-time now with phaneuf coming to the Leafs. Brian Burke said in the press conference he should be back to getting the ice -time he used to get, which should turn around some of Phaneufs sub prime numbers this year. Overall great day for the leafs. Finger to be traded by the deadline, Exelby wants a trade. Kaberle loses his no trade clause in the summer, so no matter what they are gonna have a ton of cap space for the summer and be some big buyers.
Some good moves there, Gigggy still has game but the ducks won't play him cause HIller is going well at the moment.
Apparently Ales Kotalik was asked to stay home with a pending trade in the works - maybe he's going the opposite direction for someone like Exelby, giving the leafs a 20-goal(ish) man to be a bit of an offensive stopgap while they realize they cant play Phil Kessel on all four lines with a star centre like Rickard Wallin (though calling up some kids is likely great)
Dallas won't trade Ribeiro, he's a big part of their team. Trading for Kaberle is a sideways move if you trade a star center. I think the Flames come out ahead today for the sheer fact that they will have a LOT of playing room this offseason and once Olli Jokinen is off the books.
Calgary is going to (try to) get Kovalchuk I think. Kotalik is a poison pill on the cap though, and Higgins is a great 3rd line checker but has hands of stone when he tries to find twine.
I have no clue how you guys think these trades are good for the Leafs. If you include the Jiggy deal, the Leafs dropped 4 of their top 6 scorers. They have NO OFFENSE now. Sure, they sluffed off Blake's contract, but they got Jiggy's inflated one in exchange. Blake's is a year longer, but Jiggy gets 2 million more. Plus, all of Burke's bluster about "wanting players that will play hard" and blah blah blah is all BS, because Jiggy is a known floater. As for Phaneuf...he's overrated in the East. Just like Kevin Bieksa is. Out here in the west we get to watch these guys play every night. Wait till you'll see the terrible number of mistakes he makes. He's going to get torn to shreds by Leafs fans and the Leafs media. Before the trade, the Leafs had what, 36 mil committed to players next year, and 5 forwards under contract? Now they have 43 mil committed, and THREE forwards? If they give Kulemin the same contact he has this year, it's 4 forwards and 44.5 committed. PLUS, Gustafsson is an RFA. Burke can't even go out and acquire a bunch of good scorers in the free agent market now, because he's crippled himself with big contracts on the back end. It'd be a miracle if someone took that Finger contract off their hands. Sure, they can move Kaberle in the summer to clear some space, but you've got no PP QB then. Sometimes getting the best player in the deal doesn't make you the de facto winner of the deal. This is one of those cases.
They're going to try to deal Kaberle now and use Beauch/Phaneuf as their PPQB I think. They'll rid themselves of Finger and open up even more space for their forwards. The crop and salary of the forwards they sent to Calgary would be similar to the one they'll try to get back. Average players on moveable contracts instead of a star with a huge one.
I love how, generally speaking, once the deals are done, Phaneuf turns into the shittiest defenseman in the league and the average 3rd liners they sent to Calgary suddenly became "20-30 goal scorers". Please. The Leafs couldn't score much as it was, and it was basically the warm bodies producing whatever offense they got. Those warm bodies can be replaced. Dion's game has definitely dropped off the last two seasons, but in his first two, people were having conversations about who they would build their team around, Phaneuf, Crosby or Ovechkin? Sounds stupid now, but hockey broadcasts and newspapers were making the arguments and he was in the discussion. Just like the Kessel deal, we won't know who won this one until 5 years from now. Right now, it looks like Burke traded 4 quarters for a dollar. We'll see. As for the cap problems going forward, please refrain from making ludicrous claims until THE DEADLINE ACTUALLY PASSES. Things are still to be done, so chill the fuck out and see what else happens (i.e. Poni, Kaberle, Finger, Exelby, etc.) And anyone who argues against the Giguere deal is a fucking moron and should stop watching hockey. Blake was a shitty teammate who was heavily overpaid, and NO ONE thought that anyone in their right mind would take his contract. He has zero value. Toskala has negative value. The return for those guys is irrelevant, someone taking them is miraculous on it's own. The fact that the return is an aging former Conn Smythe and Stanley Cup winner who's game is slipping is head and shoulders about what anyone would have expected back. Leaf haterz can suck a dick.
Wow, you're like the ultimate cliche. Congrats. I'm not saying that Stajan or Hagman are world beaters, only that Dion is overrated. As for the cap issues...okay, I'll give you that. Waiting till after the deadline will give a much fairer assessment. I just don't like where they're going so far. But as for Blake/Toskala...Vesa's a UFA at the end of the season. Someone taking him is not miraculous at all. As for Blake, yes, getting that contract off the books is a good move. But getting back a guy with the exact same sort of contract (virtually unmovable) doesn't make Burke some sort of genius. He added 2 mil next year to save 4 the year after. Woopity doo. They could have bought Blake out and stretched the money much further than that. So next season, they'll have a 6 million dollar goalie that plays 40 games, tops. Sounds like a winner to me!
How anyone takes that seriously is beyond me. But listen, I know you people will always shit on whatever the Leafs do no matter what. Valid points by Leaf fans will never be acknowledged, but the bullshit from the mouth-breathing ones will always be pointed at and referenced as what all Leaf fans think. I get that being the biggest, the most popular, and the richest will always bring hate. But please, try to lighten up and not take things so seriously or this will never be a fun discussion. And if this trade wasn't miraculous, then how does THIS HAPPEN?
I like Brian Burke but something about the Leafs is so rotten I don't think he can fix it for another half-decade. There is no offensive power left on that squad, it's worst than bare, it's a dry well.
So Matt Stajan and Nik Hagman are suddenly offensive firepower? Can anyone tell me that losing Jason Blake is a detriment to this team? Shit, too bad Mayers is gone too. They'll miss all those goals! What're they going to do? They have a nobody like Kessel who can't put the puck into the ocean. Ponikarovsky, Grabovski, Bozak and Kulemin have zero offensive skill. WHAT WILL THEY DO WITHOUT STAJAN AND HAGMAN? AWWWH THIS IS AWFUL. But seriously, the Leafs never had much offensive skill to begin with. I don't see how anyone can argue that taking two 3rd liners (on any other team) away "dries up the well". Other people will take their ice time. The last few seasons the Leafs have scored by committee. This will not change. I know people want to look for any reason for why this is a bad deal, but pointing to the lack of scoring this will result in is not a legitimate one. For anyone who tries that argument, if you watched the team enough, you'd know they weren't scoring much as it was.
I know what you're saying but you can't disregard skill and ability. They're not warm bodies, they're hockey players with different skillsets. Stajan is actually a good 2nd line center. Hagman is an inconsistent poor-man's Holmstrom/Franzen. Who is their designated puck carrier? Can he take on the league's leading defensive pairings? Who is their designated scorer, powerforward, faceoff man, 2-way PKer, etc...? I know Stajan, Blake and Hagman didn't contribute to their entire offense but they did to a whole lot of it.
They're in the middle of the pack in goal scoring. "If you've watched the team enough", you'd notice that the 197 goals they've given up puts them dead last in the league in that category. Not "anyone" is just going to step up and replace Stajan and Hagman, like Grind said.
Here's something I found: Now I know that Kaberle is leaving but still, they need dire help up front.
From the highlights I saw, Stajan and Hagman had a good game. The Jokinen deal will end up working well for both teams I think. I just want Gainey to do something with the Canadiens. Sellers or buyers, Spacek and Hamrlik have got to go, they're poison.
Most of you people are looking at these trades very weirdly. Saying the Leafs lost scoring this year is irrelevant. The trades seems to be aimed for 2011-2012 season or beyond. This Leafs team isn't build to win this year (obviously) and probably not next year either. And as far as cap issues, the leafs likely saved cap space next year. Dion's hit is around 6.5 as I remember. Sjodstrom is under a mil. White is restricted and will probably get 3 - 3.5 mil per. Same for Stajan, maybe a bit less. Hagman comes in at 3 mil. By playing Dion, Sjostrom and Stalberg/Kadri/DiDomenico/whoever, the cap hit will likely be less going forward. The trade still hinges on Dion becoming the superstar he's shown brief flashes of, but if he was already there, he wouldn't be on the table. The Giguere trade is even lower risk. He mentors Gustavsson and lowers his bargaining power. Before, if the Leafs didn't resign the Monster, they were completely fucked in net. Now they at least have a stopgap for a year if needed. If Giguere is miraculously good, they can trade him for something at the deadline next year. If he sucks, they keep him or bury him in the minors if necessary. Plus, they get out from that final year of Blake's contract, when they might actually need the $4 mil to compete. There really is nothing negative for the leafs at all. I would imagine Kaberle gets dealt at the draft when his NTC is void, and Finger spends next year buried in the minors to clear cap space. I would say he's completely untradable, but I would have said that about Blake a couple days ago too.