Are Trade Winds Blowing?

I think we make a trade, but not until we hit a losing skid or lose somebody to injury. There’s no reason to force change if the current group of players is working.

Finger & Scrivens for Jeff Carter!!!1

I’d put Finger in the Marlies press box.

They could pull a souray or (the guy from the caps whom they buried) and loan him out to another AHL team while eating his salary.

All of those teams have cap issues but I think it’s safe to say that teams that need to address cap issues jettison guys that are not near the calibre of players that you’ve mentioned.

Mike Brennan doesn’t have an NHL contract, at least according to CapGeek. He’s the odd man out in the short term.

Also…..
Carter, Zajac, Krejci == not happening

Terrible top six; injuries; just signed Andreas Lilja; Cam Fowler getting eaten alive; Sheldon Brookbank playing significant minutes.

It was going to happen, but Kaberle nixed the deal by not waiving his NTC. He was enough.

Just no.

Quick question, if the leafs were to trade Finger, would they have to recall him first?

So Finger created an opening…that was terrible.

Where’s the option on the poll for “Let me check my magic 8Ball” because that’s what I would have to look at to get a read of what this means.

I think Brian Burke likes the depth of 8 guys on the Marlies and besides you can rotate who plays because so many AHL games are back-to-back and sometimes 3 in a row. You can play 6 and sit 2 and then rotate it every night so that they are basically playing 3/4 of a season each… Or they could just send Finger to the ECHL.

BBBBBRRRRAAAAYYYYYDDDDDEEENNNNSSSSCCCCHHHHEEENNNN…

/tinfoil

See, this is how you write an article about trade scenarios

Milan Lucic

All I know is that, if something does happen re: a trade, no one will see it coming until after the fact.

None of these scenarios are any more likely than the other, and it’s WAY too early in the season for any team to go into panic mode.

I think we’re in a bit of a holding pattern until at least Rememberance Day.

I really don’t think any of those big name centreman are very plausible, and having said that, does a trade for one of them really accommodate the plan for this team right now? If Burke is true to his word and he’s only gonna go with two, skilled offensive centreman at once (with the 3rd and 4th guys being defensive, grinders/shutdown guys) how is he going to make room for Kadri in the near future? Even if Grabbo is part of a package for one of those big names (which I’d be fine with), what happens to Bozak two years from now when Carter is still here and Kadri is ready? I can’t see Burke allotting him to a third line role. Decisions!

Whoa. Carter walks? Not in a million years.

Anyone remember this summer when Burke skipped that charity luncheon in Thunder Bay because he was supposedly meeting with a potential player. Was that ever confirmed as legit?

If the Marlies were so stacked on defense they would have won a game.

Eh, if we trade away one of our surplus top D players then we’d just have to bring Finger back up again to fill the hole, and if we’re just trading AHL players then we’re not likely to get a fantastic return… And if we’re just going to take a salary dump in order to use our salary cap space to generate useful assets, then we still don’t really have enough cap space to take more than 2 or 3 million without getting right back into the trouble we were in before we demoted him.

Basically there’s no reason to do a particularly meaningful trade now that we didn’t already have 2 weeks ago. There’s maybe one extra degree of freedom in our financial maneuvering, so nothing will happen unless there was a pretty cool trade that was already being considered that just wasn’t QUITE worth the cap tradeoff, that now squeaks over the line.

trade speculation is always exhausting, and nobody ever gets it right. Most important thing – and its a change from past years – we have a stocked shelf of a very sought-after commodity: defencemen. Whether he does it now, in a month or at the trade deadline, you can bet that Burke’s going to be dangling our “too many D-men” for opportunities. I gots the faith.

Number of NHL Centres who have played 40+ games and topped 1.0 ppg in the past 3 years:

15. Of that group, Malkin + Crosby, Thornton + Marleau, and Carter + Richards have all played on the same team. That means 12 teams have at least 1 center at this level of play, and 16 teams make the NHL playoffs yearly… The only player in the group that didn’t make the playoffs was Steven Stamkos.

Number of NHL Centres to play 40+ games and top 0.75 ppg (61.5 point season pace):

45. This includes the 15 players mentioned in the previous group, leaving us with 30 players that fall in the 60-80 point pace category. That averages 1 player per team.

So in review, there are enough 60+ point centres that every team could logically have ONE, and there are enough 80+ point centres that nearly every playoff team has at least one player of that ability level.

The idea that it is “ludicrous” or “preposterous” for the Leafs to desire and seek out one player at each level is frankly beyond the pale. If you somehow magically think that the Leafs are going to be a successful playoff team WITHOUT players of this caliber, you are dreaming in technicolour.

I know the Leafs don’t have players of that skill level right now, but I’m suggesting they find them within the next few years to maximize their window of opportunity with the young developing group they have growing on the team right now.

Perhaps Tyler Bozak, Mikhail Grabovski, or Nazem Kadri develop into the 80+ or 85+ point center I think we need, but they will need one eventually.

Arguing that Chicago getting by without one proves it’s not necessary to seek one out ignores the fact that Patrick Kane is a puck distributing winger who scored 88 points last year with 58 assists. While Jonathan Toews didn’t produce 85+ points, his 68 point season in 76 games while the team lacked Marion Hossa’s participation for 25 games, and Brian Campbell’s for another 14, leads me to the idea that Toews may surpass 80 points this year with Hossa’s continued presence, and contributions on the point from Campbell whenever he gets over his knee injury.