I think this is going to happen. As it stands now the Leafs are spending 19 million on their top 4:

Dion Phaneuf: 6.5

Mike Komisarek: 4.5

Tomas Kaberle: 4.25

Francois Beauchemin: 3.8

Factor in Jeff Finger's 3 mil, and that's a lot of money invested in the blue line.

As someone pointed out, we just traded 40% of our scoring away, with Fredrik Sjostrom, Rickard Wallin, John Mitchell, and a call-up replacing Niklas Hagman, Matt Stajan, Jason Blake, and Jamal Mayers; I can't see that as anything other than a net-loss in potential goal scoring.

With Phaneuf an offensive threat and Carl Gunnarson quietly having a decent rookie season points-wise, plus the trading of two picks away for Kessel, moving Kaberle makes sense. And if he doesn't want to be traded god knows where in the summer, he's already given Burke his list of favored trade destinations.