Elliotte Friedman: Tim Thomas to Toronto?

Yeah, that’s what Friedman makes it out to be. Personally I think the deal would have to return something Boston’s way and “nothing” seems like a stupid move for Boston to make.

Thomas is 14th in the league in SV%. Maybe I should change the poll to “Kaberle for Thomas and Boston’s 1st?”

thomas would also soften the blow if the monster wants 3.5 and someone offer sheets him

He isn’t Bob Gainey

I don’t think they’d do it with their pick either.

There’s time to test the kid and make sure that there isn’t a playoff run.

I could see getting our second rounder back, but not the first rounder. There’s a good chance that the best goalie on the market come July 1st will be Turco. Boston knows the Leafs need goaltending. They’d be throwing Burke a pretty huge bone in Thomas and a 1st rounder.

I don’t give a flying eff if it’s our first or theirs at this point… I think the problem is not having ANY first round pick.

Yes it sucks that we don’t have our own in a year when we suck so atrociously, but I’d take their’s over nothing.

Well, right. Personally I’d take Thomas off of Boston’s hands without them giving us a first, but I wanted Nylander too.

Just interesting that Friedman would go to the “Toronto takes [bad contract] and a first.” I tweeted at him about it, we’ll see if he responds.

Bruins are sitting 9th and fading fast, while the Islander and Panthers are putting together a lot of wins. They are started to lose a spot in the playoffs.

I think the idea of the bruins mid round 1st rounder and not ours is the one in play

wait, are we taking Friedman seriously now?

No. Redden’s contract is death. Thomas’ isn’t even all that bad.

It reminds me of the summer, when the Jays were going through the Halliday situation and there was some talk about trying to package Vernon Wells into a deal. Some smart baseball person crunched the numbers, and they concluded that Wells’ contract is so bad that it would take four Roy Halliday’s to offset it. In other words, you’d need to package four Cy Young pitchers into one deal just to get rid of Wells — and that was getting nothing in return. And baseball doesn’t even have a salary cap.

Redden isn’t quite that bad. But the point is that people don’t realize how bad a bad contract can really be. They can be devastatingly bad.

Read my lips: No more defensemen

cap space today and in 3 years will be different creatures hopefully based on the improvement down the road. Thomas would be a good stop gap, but not going to carry us over the top

The Leafs will need a veteran goalie next year, and Thomas’ cap hit is almost offset by shooting Toskala in the head losing Toskala to free agency.

The absolute worst case is that Thomas comes in, he’s terrible just like every other veteran the Leafs acquire, and you buy him out after next season. That cap hit would be four years at $1.7M, which isn’t good but won’t cripple you. Plus you got a high pick. And that’s the absolute worst case.

This would be a no-brainer for the Leafs.

Depends. Are they still hoping to bring him up at some point in the future?

Who the fuck is Tim Brent?

/never gets old.

Does Anaheim have the same cap issues as Boston?

Well Giguere’s got a NMC, and his numbers for this season and last aren’t much better than what we’ve got. The only thing that would make that move ‘smart’ is if Giguere somehow managed to rekindle who he was 3 years ago on a worse team.

Unless you don’t care about how good Giggy actually is and we’re still on the “take a bad contract for a pick” track, in which case I think it’s more of a toss-up.

But then we could watch him smash Blake in the face every game!

The only thing I really like about Thomas is he is Batshit crazy and does everything but butterfly.

in the near future (i.e. the next 3 years) the Leafs are likely to be heavy on the side of younger players who are playing for far less than their normal percentage would warrant.

Kadri, Schenn, Kulemin, Grabovski, Bozak, Gustavsson, Gunnarsson and perhaps Hanson, Stålberg, Mikus, Paradis, Mitchell, DiDomenico, Champagne, etc. are all likely to be on the lower end of the salary scale. If Thomas chews up some extra salary for a few years it’s not the end of the world.

Bigger issues are players that are underperforming thus far = i.e. Finger. That’s where the problems are.

I get that this is a hypothetical sort of template for a deal that you’re just spitballing, but I don’t see the Bruins rushing to help the Leafs improve at any position, given the cupboard full of consequently slightly devalued draft picks they would then have.

Definitely got the attention of people around the Barilkosphere today.

Thanks for posting Elliotte.

A question: other than the Malakhov thing coming right out of the lockout, has there ever been an example of a high pick being dealt for cap room? I can’t think of one. It seems like for all the speculation around this topic every year, it never seems to happen.

I don’t doubt that guys like Burke would be open to this sort of set up, but have you ever heard from a GM who said he was willing to make the salary dump side of this deal?

I get Burke’s motivation, what’s Chiarelli’s? Couldn’t he just bury Thomas in the minors if his play tails off? For everything I’ve heard about Thomas being “bad” this year he’s 14th in the league in save percentage.

Thanks for joining, I appreciate it.

Hey Elliotte. I enjoy your work on CBC. I honestly don’t think we intended to take your blurb as scripture about a possible Thomas to Toronto deal. As you are aware, things tend to spiral out of control when it comes to the Leafs and their fans. It was an excellent conversation starter, though. Does anyone in the NHL community actually think a deal of this nature will go down?

the deal you’re proposing makes sense, but I’m not sure if I’m Boston that it works without something else coming back in return.

Losing Thomas, a pick, and a prospect sounds pretty steep for just some cap room.

What sort of players are Boston likely to want in exchange? Obviously Kaberle is one option… and he DID agree to be dealt there last year… although that’s off the table now apparently.

What else do the Leafs have that the Bruins might want?

Thanks for joining.

I’d just echo DGB’s comment about whether you’ve ever heard of a GM being interested in it.

It just seems like it gets tonnes more talk than it deserves based on the odds of it happening.

When I read this I actually hear Elliotte’s voice in my head.

Keep up the great work, Mr. Friedman.

i thought the bruins wanted a 35 goal scorer?