Based on their performance in Montreal Saturday night, most of the Toronto Maple Leafs players are romantic fools, because their effort at the Bell Centre was consistent with a group that gave their hearts away a couple days before Valentine’s Day.
With divisional road games this week in Boston and Buffalo, the outcome is not expected to be much different. Toronto performances at the TD Garden in the Phil Kessel era have been ghastly and if that were not enough, the Bruins are coming off a weekend in which they lost both ends of a home and home against Detroit rather convincingly.
The Sabres are also coming off a bad outing; an overtime loss to the Islanders in which Leaf killer Ryan Miller yielded more goals in one game than he has allowed against Toronto in the last couple years. The Leafs have not been victorious at the HSBC Den of Defeat and Death since fall 2008, so unless Lindy Ruff feels charitable and plays backup Patrick Lalime for the first time in a milennia, that streak of utter ineptitude will continue.
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The focus of rumored deals for the next fourteen days will be on Tomas Kaberle and Kris Versteeg, with a slightly lesser spotlight on Jean-Sebastien Giguere. That does not mean that they are the only players who will be moved before February 28th.
Veterans like Freddie Sjostrom and Brett Lebda are also candidates to be shipped out, mostly because of their low salaries and contract status. Sjostrom only has five points in 47 games(2 G, 3 A), but is a good depth player who could help a team with penalty killing and checking. Lebda has been a failure in Toronto, with only one assist and a horrendous -17 plus/minus in 25 games, but he is a veteran blueliner with playoff experience, his cap hit is less than $1.5 Million(although he has another year on the contract) and opposing GM’s may believe that his disastrous numbers are more a product of the team he is on rather than any shortcomings on Lebda’s part.
The fact that Lebda has stepped back into the lineup instead of Carl Gunnarsson recently could be coincidence or could be that he is being showcased. For playoff teams, the difference between winning and losing a series comes down to who has more quality reserves. It would not be a total shock for GM Brian Burke to find takers for Lebda in the next two weeks.
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Regarding interest in Kaberle, reports indicate that three teams have interest in the veteran defenseman, but that the commonly accepted price tag for the puck rusher is too rich for their tastes. Former Habs coach Guy Carbonneau indicated during an interview on a Montreal radio station over the weekend that the Canadiens be interested in Kaberle, but that the organization does not have the depth to be able to acquire him. Burke indicated to that same radio station that he had spoken with Habs GM Pierre Gauthier and would have no problem making a deal inside the division.
In today’s New York Post, Larry Brooks reports that the Rangers have interest in Kaberle, as well as another ex-Muskoka Five member:
….the Blueshirts will inquire about Florida's Bryan McCabe, who may return this week from the broken jaw that has sidelined him for approximately a month, but they won't yield a first-rounder and a top prospect, let alone a young roster player, for the privilege of getting him.
The same is true as it applies to the Maple Leafs' Tomas Kaberle, who, like McCabe, has a no-move, and who, by the way, is a poor defender hardly worth the price it would cost to get him.
In the Boston Globe, Kevin Paul Dupont says that interest from the Bruins remains high:
Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli is willing to deal that first-round Toronto pick he’s holding from the September 2009 Phil Kessel deal. The only two viable names on the radar screen right now for him to surrender it: 1. Brad Richards; 2. Zach Bogosian. Both would be huge pickups here and both would require the Bruins adding bodies to the mix . . . . . Look for Leafs defenseman Tomas Kaberle to finally have a new home on or before Feb. 28. Yes, it could be Boston, where Kaberle’s main impact would be on the atrophied power play. It makes zero sense to have Mark Recchi, one of the game’s best goal scorers from in tight, working out on the point. Like taking a Clydesdale to a poodle convention. If you want to get creative, park 7-feet-on-skates Zdeno Chara at center on the power play and count the damage, both in terms of goals scored and defensemen leveled.
The common thread with all of these reports is that the interested teams are balking at Burke’s asking price and they are using the media to try and spell out that they have other options available to them.
In spite of Brooks’ focusing on Kaberle’s inadequacies defensively, the Rangers, Bruins and Habs are not interested in acquiring him for shutdown purposes. All these teams need help moving the puck out of their own zones and need an effective point man on their power play. Kaberle is the best fit for all their needs, they just have to meet Burke’s price.
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According to Comcast Sportsnet’s Tim Panaccio, another playoff contender may be interested in Versteeg:
Yet, one player who is likely on their radar for an upgrade is Toronto winger Kris Versteeg, whose cap hit is an affordable $3.083 million this year and next.
The soon-to-be 25-year-old left wing is a perfect fit for the Flyers: a gritty, hard checker who plays above his 5-foot-10 size. The bad? He could cost the Flyers James van Riemsdyk, a player Leafs GM Brian Burke likes a lot and believes will be a future Olympian for Team USA.
Burke has already hung his “open for business” shingle on his doorstep along 50 Bay Street in The Big T.O.
“You try and keep the TV off as much as possible,” Versteeg told the Globe and Mail this week, when asked about trade rumors. “You're in Toronto, it's hard to ignore everything when you're getting asked about it, but you do got to go out there and just try to play your game.
A deal of this type is exactly what Burke would be looking for in exchange for a valuable commodity like Versteeg. Van Riemsdyk is only 21, is entering his second year in the NHL and at 6’3”, has the size and hands to be the power forward that the Leafs desperately need.
This could be part of a larger deal involving Giguere and due to Burke’s relationship with Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, has to be considered very possible.
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