As I get older, I find it more and more difficult to take pleasure from the suffering of others. For some unknown reason, I don't find myself actively hoping for the bad guys to fail.
Of course, there's something to be said about having your hunches confirmed.
Darcy Tucker TOI: 15:27 0G 0A 0PiM -1 1 shot
Andrew Raycroft .766sv% 7.00 GAA
The guys at uber Leaf site PPP graciously asked me to submit a post on Darcy Tucker. Sideshow Bob is playing against the Leafs tonight for the first time since his buyout this Summer. Here's what I sent them...
With the exception of Mats Sundin, has there been a Leaf as polarizing as Darcy Tucker?
When one thinks of Tucker, it's just as easy to conjure up a big hit, countless cross-crease power play tap-ins and a little man willing to take on all comers as it is to recall countless bad penalties, terrible defensive play and a propensity to end up on his ass along the side wall scrambling after that helmet of his that somehow just couldn’t stay on.
Then there's the whole Sideshow Bob act: was it a display of passion and tenacity or a guy all too often playing on the wrong side of the edge (ask yourself this: if it was Tucker going after Kostitsyn instead of Grabbo what would the reaction of Leafs-nation been?)
I don't know if it's unique to the Leafs, but this is a fan base that (sometimes inexplicably) elevates certain players and vilifies others to degrees that aren’t quite warranted.
Hard work (or the perception of working hard) is often the tipping point that determines where on the Leafs Nation Effigy to ElegyTM spectrum a player ends up.
Even with (or maybe because of) his Sideshow Bob antics, Darcy Tucker was beloved by most of Leafs nation.
Tucker put up respectable numbers during his time with the Leafs, breaking the 20 goal mark in five out of his nine seasons in the Blue and White and he finished with a respectable 148 goals and 319 points in 531 games.
But he often struggled on the other side of the puck and had a penchant for taking untimely penalties.
Say what you will about +/- (and we all recognize that it's a flawed stat) but Tucker has only been a plus three times in his 12 year career. On the Leafs, Tucker could usually be found at or near the bottom of the club (32 of 33 in 2003; 15 of 36 in 2004; 28 of 32 in 2006; 30 of 30 in 2007; 26 of 32 in 2008).
My standard joke: The Darcy Tucker hat trick is a power play goal, a bad penalty and -2 on the night.
What these numbers don’t reflect is Tucker’s approach to the game. He was a small man who played a big man’s game. He threw big hits, would fight just about anyone, and if he ever had a thought, he seemed to share it with anyone and everyone on the ice.
While that may have brought him the adoration of Leafs Nation, this style of play may also have brought an untimely end to his career; which brings us to tonight.
For the first time since his buyout last summer (a final act of devotion or a final stick in the eye of the Leafs?), Tucker is facing his former club.
If history has taught Leaf fans anything, it's that former players (prospects, guys that wore a Leaf jersey once when they were 6 years old, etc.) have a long tradition of coming back to have big games against the Blue and White (see Boyes, Rask, Sullivan, Roberts, Bester, Bradley, etc.)
But for the first time in a long time I don't have that awful feeling that a former player is going to burn the Leafs.
Hip and knee issues have put Tucker on pace for just 9 goals this season and lowest point total since he broke into the league full time in 1997. He has all of 2 assists so far in 2009.
That level of production can't justify a $2.5M pay cheque. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tucker faces the ignominious fate of being the first NHLer to be bought out twice.
In fact, the fans in Colorado have already turned on him:
Terrible defensively, slower than paint drying, gets knocked on his ass all the time, takes stupid penalties, and tends to get in the way offensively. But, he's really good at tip-ins when he's not covered in front of the net. Too harsh? Maybe; Tucker does get some big hits in. But he's been a disappointment even compared to our low expectations. In general, I have been very pleased with the way Tony Granato has handled his personnel this year, but I don't understand why he keeps using Tucker late in the game.
Darcy Tucker is still getting powerplay time based on what results? Wojtek Wolski, Milan Hejduk, Ryan Smyth, Marek Svatos, Chris Stewart and Cody Mcleod are all scoring at a better rate than Tucker. They were all in the lineup. So was the slumping T.J. Hensick who might benefit from a little boost to his playing time.
- Avs Talk
Darcy Tucker has shown a bona fide "lack of effort" in a lot of games this season. He takes stupid penalties and doesn't offer anything on the defensive end, and offers very little on the offensive end. He just looks disinterested.
The fact is, Tucker never should have been re-signed by JFJ.
Yes, he was having a career year but how refreshing would it have been for the Leafs to finally trade a player at their highest value? If Nagy’s eight goals were worth a first rounder and a player at that trade deadline, imagine what Tucker might have been worth?
I don’t know that I’ll boo him tonight. It’s hard to get riled up about a guy who’s so clearly on the downside of his career.
Moreover, like McCabe I’d rather just treat all these ex-Leafs that were signed to awful contracts by JFJ as treyf.
So instead of espousing hatred, or suggesting anyone boo, I’ll just ask that Darcy Tucker be kept front in centre in the lack of leadership debate that swirled around this team when Wilson first took over. That he be remembered as a key cog in the problematic Corson-Green clique that caused a schism in the Leafs dressing room. And finally all Leafs Nation remember Tucker as one of the primary members of the NTC 5 who refused a trade at the deadline, refused to waive his NMC in the off-season, refused to help this franchise re-build and finally demanded a buy-out that saddled the Leafs with a cap hit through to 2013.
And no matter where on the effigy to elegy spectrum one might put Tucker, I think all Leaf fans can come together in the hope that Tucker doesn’t get the GWG against the Leafs tonight.
A recent Harris Decima Poll has certainly added some much needed clarity to the issue of fighting in hockey, specifically which groups are in favour and which groups would like to see it removed from the game.
The Harris Decima poll in question offered up these interesting gems:
That's some great data, but the real nugget that's missing is how many Canadians comprise each of these segments?
I asked Harris Decima for it and they very kindly and quickly got it to me (Thanks Harris Decima! Even though I work with two of your competing firms, if I ever have research needs you're the first firm I'll call).
Here's that key data:
Now, I'm somewhat surprised that only 38% of Canadians follow hockey closely or somewhat closely and only 12% follow the game very closely. But moving past that for a moment, and without getting into the semantics of how a person self-identifies into one of these groups, in terms of for/against fighting that breaks down to:
Looking at this data, it's interesting that less than 1% of Canadians that follow very or somewhat closely said "don't know/no answer" compared to 5% among those that don't follow the game closely and those who are furthest from being fans are the most in favour of banning fighting.
It also strikes me that if I'm the NHL looking to grow revenues, the next obvious question is: what can be done to convert 61% of Canadians into more engaged hockey followers.
If it involves banning fighting (and here we have absolutely no data, just pure conjecture) the math isn't in favour of the hardcore hockey fan that likes fighting. Every 10% from the non-follower audience that's converted is the equivalent of 50% of the hardcore followers and 25% of the middle tier.
Personally, I'm on the fence on this one. Rather than outright banning fighting, I'd like to see the NHL continue to move towards reducing the number of fights in the game.
As always, the Barilkosphere has generated lots of must read content on the topic of banning fighting. The Godfather PPP has an epic post (with tremendous commentary) here; Down Goes Brown has his always incisive thoughts here and here; and Cox Bloc weighs in over here.
I don't mean to pick on Jeff Blair, but I was lured into reading his article about the Minnesota Wild this morning and am left rather puzzled as to why it was filed or what Blair's point might be. Of course, I could just be having reading comprehension issues this morning.
I'm an unrepentant fan of Money Ball the book (in fact anything written by Michael Lewis) and I also find the work of Bill James fascinating. I know I'm not alone in wondering what role advanced statistics have in the NHL and in helping GMs identify value (e.g. players performing higher than their cap hit) in an inefficient system (the NHL).
Given that the NHL is the only sport with a hard cap and guaranteed salaries, you'd think there would be an insatiable appetite for fresh insights and new approaches, especially now that several GMs (Howson, Gillis and Risebrough) are looking at new ways to build a team.
But back to Blair. He finds himself with the Leafs in Minnesota and he's got access to Wild GM Doug Risebrough and he turns in this little bowl of sadness:
MINNEAPOLIS — The epitome of the feisty player who makes the game's dinosaurs go all dewy-eyed, Doug Risebrough — who once ripped Marty McSorley's jersey to shreds in the penalty box in one of the more memorable chapters of the Battle of Alberta — now carries a backpack and talks in Moneypuck.That's a great lede. The juxtaposition of the sweater tearing goon with the book reading, stat loving, GM is solid.
He will patiently explain the need to "react quickly in your own time." He will talk, as he did Monday, about how the Minnesota hockey market "understands the balance between defence and offence," and if you need to figure out what he thinks about the Minnesota Wild, all you have to do is go to the club's website (wild.nhl.com) and there you'll find a hockey operations blog and "Thoughts about our team at the all-star break, by Doug Risebrough, president and general manager." No need to have your message distilled by the media. It's all there. Not quite the thoughts of Chairman Doug, but a dispassionate analysis, in this case, of why his team is scoring less along with an obvious and repeated defence of personnel decisions made in the off-season.
The Wild do things like this, either Risebrough or director of hockey operations Chris Snow, a former baseball beat reporter with The Boston Globe. Three fewer wins than last year, an equal number of overtime losses, but six places lower in the standings and they can make it all make sense.Um, that first sentence needs a bit of work (why the passive voice?) but that second sentence is a killer. How hard is it make sense of the Wild's current place in the standings? Seriously, in four words: "The West is tight." Who would have thought Phoenix would be in fifth?
When the Toronto Maple Leafs meet the Wild Tuesday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, they will face a team that on the surface appears to be one of the most nondescript in the NHL, without the type of identity crisis that afflicts the Leafs.Blair mistakes boring with non-descript. Ask any hockey fan to describe the Wild in three words or less and "defence" "trap" and "low scoring" will be mentioned with more frequency than a Hab or Sens fan dropping "1967" on Leafs Nation.
It isn't exactly comforting, but the Wild know who they are: ninth place in the Western Conference; their best forward, Marian Gaborik, possibly due back in town Tuesday after a rehabilitation stint following hip surgery, but still weeks away from a possible return; and a simmering contractual issue with free agent to be and all-star goaltender Niklas Backstrom. This for a team that had Brian Rolston and Pavol Demitra leave to free agency.No Mr. Blair, that's not who they are, it's where they are.
In the local media, some sniff about a "smartest kids in the classroom" thing that might segue into something resembling baseball arguments about Moneyball. It's not just failure that undermines being newfangled; so can treading water.Some of the local media don't like Risebrough's attitude, ok. But what's the meat of these arguments? Who's on which side? What can we learn, if anything, from this new approach or it's detractors? Sadly, it's nothing that Blair wants to share...
Two first-round exits in consecutive playoff years require some spinning to constitute progress to the average fan.Spinning. Really? GM gets a blog and suddenly Blair is re-living 1990 and the War Room. Is San Jose spinning after numerous playoff choke jobs? Are the Sens spinning? When is it spinning and when is it offering explanations? (I'd wager in the Wild's case it's spin as it attempts to go right to to the fans via a blog without the great big brains of sports journalists as intermediaries.)
Riseborough. points out that his team is 24th in goals for this season and second in goals against. And (all you dinosaurs look away): "As we must, we are taking fewer penalties than all but two teams and killing the ones we take at the second-best rate in the league."Um, dinosaurs? What? Older hockey fans can't understand or don't want to understand that penalties hurt your team? These so-called dinosaurs don't get (or don't want to get) that it's good to have a strong PK? I have no idea what Blair is on about here.
The key is getting some goals 5-on-5, where the Wild have just 62 goals, tied for lowest in the NHL. "In the previous three seasons, no player in the league scored at a greater rate at even strength than Marian, 1.61 goals per 60 even-strength minutes - compared to 1.58 for Alexander Ovechkin," Risebrough writes.
Risebrough believes that the key to success in the salary-cap era is spreading out risk. So he did that in the off-season, taking the $11.75-million that it cost other clubs to sign Rolston, Demitra and Mark Parrish and spreading it out (plus $1-million more) among five players who have outscored the departed.
In the end, he believes it wouldn't matter if Gaborik was healthy, and it looks the same from the dressing room as from the executive suite. "All those 2-1 games add up," defenceman Nick Schultz said yesterday. "Any little mistake, you know? It's never just a matter of 'Oh, they got another one, so we'll get one and even it out.' "A player and a GM on a different page? Stop the presses. A player who knows where it's deficiency might be and who'd like the talent to help, that's not exactly new. My beer league team would like our goalie to come out of the blue paint some time this year too.
Head coach Jacques Lemaire shrugged in response to a question about the lack of offence. "What do you do?" Lemaire said. "You have to be better somewhere, naybe the power play. The first 25 games or so, it was our power play that carried us. But you know, you can't keep that up all year. You have to start scoring 5-on-5."I think Lemaire is absolutely right and it's a shame that Blair hasn't decided to explore the GM and Coach's insight of the importance of 5 on 5 play.
And this is who the Wild are. If you doubt it, check the GM's blog. Minnesota is "playing to its identity," Risebrough writes, without relying on hooey about grit or chemistry, to a fan base that apparently understands but might be prepared to ask hard questions about why that's the case. The guess here is Risebrough's ready for them, fingers poised over his laptop.Yuck. Is this who Blair is? I don't doubt it but I won't be checking out much more of his stuff if he continues to phone it in. Talk about a missed opportunity...I'm sure Blair is ready for more, fingers poised over his laptop too.
The latest Red Line Report is out. This is a must read for anyone who like to track undrafted NHL prospects, something I'm guessing most Leaf fans are rather interested in these days.
According to the report, the top 10 prospects (at this point) are:
Jeff Blair at the Globe has filed the annual "cities that suck at sports" story.
You'd think journalists might wait until that awkward time after the Super Bowl and prior to Spring Training to start dragging out these old (and largely useless) set pieces.
But looking at the story (I won't link to it, it doesn't deserve your eyes and the Globe doesn't deserve the click throughs) I think Blair has taken journalistic laziness to a whole other level.
Yeah, Blair's calculated the collective winning percentages of the Leafs, Raptors, Argos and Jays - but where are the winning percentages of the Calgary Vipers, Vancouver Canadians, and Edmonton Cracker-Cats?
Really, if you've got the gumption to tell me the Jays stink (breaking news since, what, 1995?) you need to tell me what those Cracker-Cats have been up to.
Canadians from Tofino to Trout River are dying to know if their local town (or heaven forbid a Canadian rival) has a shot at being the Black Boot Trophy Champs any time soon. Millions, if not hundreds, want to know if those no goodniks from Fargo-Moorhead might dash the Golden Eyes' hopes in 2009.
The Raptors won-loss record may bave been factored in, but where are the Edmonton Chill and Vancouver Volcanos? Seriously, does Blair not have an internet connection and calculator?
And I see another mathematical error: Toronto's professional sports teams may have a collective winning percentage of .457 to Ottawa's .443 but there's nary a mention of the nation's capitol.
Based on Ottawa's omission from the piece I can only conclude that either Blair is saying the Sens aren't a "professional team" or towns like Ottawa need to have a second sports team in a 100 mile radius to be part of this story. I'm not sure which one it is...
Anyways, my point remains: this must be an important story as the Globe set aside 1,200 words and who knows how many column inches for it. The least they could do is some basic math and a few google searches. After all, the municipal pride of millions is on the line here (isn't it?).
With investigative journalism like this, I look forward to Blair's next big expose: Is Edmonton really the City of Champions?
**UPDATED**
This piece was written with my tongue firmly in cheek. I think it would have been hilarious had Blair actually looked at minor league teams, but I guess it's just me...
The Leafs sure turned in a stinker last night against Nashville. Just 17 shots on net and only 4 in the third. Talk about teeing it up for a "playoffs in New Jersey" punchline.
Don't ask me why, but after the game I actually listened to Andy Frost's call-in show (remind me never to do that again, will you?)
I was a little surprised at how upset the callers were. One guy claimed it was the worst Leafs performance in 50 years (he clearly missed most of the 1980s, the time the Leafs lost to the Pens 12-1 on Boxing Day in '91, the time that the Flames smoked the Leafs 12-2, Mike Murphy's entire tenure, the night the Leafs didn't hit double digits in shots for a game seven at the Meadowlands, the back-to-back must wins versus Montreal in 2005, the St. Louis Blues scoring 117 goals in four minutes in November 2000 to complete an improbably comeback against my beloved Leafs late in the third...)
I joked over at PPP that maybe the fans who were so upset by last night's performance hadn't watched the Leafs for the past 200 games or maybe they just missed the barrage of pre-season prognostication that concluded the Leafs would have a tough time beating a mite team this season.
For those of you who are frustrated by this year's results, let's take a quick look back to see if the Leafs are living up to (down to?) expectations.
James Mirtle:
There's pretty much zero expectations on this team, and that's probably a good thing...It looks like a tank job, even with Ron Wilson at the helm, and I fully expect to see anything resembling a veteran tossed overboard come the trade deadline. It could get ugly — although that's probably not a bad idea.Greg Wyshynski:
And this is, to put it bluntly, an expansion-level collection of maybes and have-nots that are wearing the uniform of an Original Six team in one of the league's major media markets...If this moribund collection gets even a sniff of the postseason, then Ron Wilson's coaching genius is confirmed. Because on paper, the offensive attack for Toronto reads like a fantasy team entirely constructed from what's left on the waiver wire.TSN - unlike the past few seasons, there's no illusion of grandeur this time from the team and its fans. After years of trying to squeak into the playoffs with quick fixes, the Leafs appear ready to start over from square one.
The Leafs will place 30th among 30 teams and the only question to be answered is whether they will break the post-lockout record for fewest points in a season. The Philadelphia Flyers hold that distinction with a 56-point showing in 2006-07...Multiplying the Leafs’ preseason effort over 82 games results in a record of 18-45-19 for 55 points. That is a colossal 16 points less than the worst team in the NHL last season. Tampa Bay brought up the rear with 71 points and won the draft lottery. Could the 2008-09 Maple Leaf bottom out to that degree? Absolutely.I'd love to see more passion from the Leafs too. More guts. More pride. But I've also seen this franchise go a decade without hitting .500. I've seen some ugly times as a Leaf fan and at least, for once, it seems like there might just be a bit of a plan or at the very least some semblance of a strategy in the executive corridors of the ACC.
My father's health isn't the greatest. He would kill me for sharing this news.
Ten years after retiring and moving to Kingston, my parents can no longer cope with the many stairs and massive yards of suburbia. They've sold their split-level and are moving into a condo.
My mother is looking forward to the move. It's not the home we grew up in and even though it's where my daughter really walked for the first time, it's not a place that's suffused with memories.
I spent this weekend with them in Kingston, the idea was to give them a little extra help around their house before the big move. My total contribution: changing the batteries in the smoke detectors and swapping out a central vac dust bag.
Despite being confined to a walker, my dad still won't let anyone do much of anything to lend a hand. He's of that generation, won't complain and won't ask for help.
It was -19 Celsius in Kingston on Saturday and my kids were going a little stir crazy. Tired of their toys, unable to really play outside, my mother finally suggested that I head into the crawl space and pull out some of my childhood toys for my kids to play with. Faster than the opposition opens the scoring on the Leafs, I was in their crawlspace under the stairs.
What I initially encountered strangely put a big smile on my face:
I say strangely as those are photos of a young Chris Chelios and Guy Carboneau wearing the blue, blanc et rouge along with a double page spread of Patrick Roy. They were cut out of a French language glossy and stapled to the drywall. Not the sort of thing that would usually bring a Leaf fan joy.
I couldn't find a date on them, but Chelios was traded by the Canadiens in 1989-90, so I'd guess they're about 20 years old.
Had I been a younger man, I might have taken them down or made up some excuse about the need for an exorcism; but for some reason, the discovery of these photos made me happy. Really happy.
It was like stumbling across an encoded message that could have come from any of our childhoods.
Near the door of the crawlspace was the following scrawl:
I wanted to use a lyric from Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast (6th round and all that) in the title of this post, but I just couldn't put my finger on the right one so The Smiths will have to do (amazingly, only two years separate those tracks).
And now a here's a heckuva lot of text for a near meaningless trade (only in Toronto would a sixth rounder for a marginal 37 year old be seen as some type of bell weather for the franchise; I should note, the traded asset is also conditional. Yeah, it's Brad May for a conditional sixth round pick. Now, Lord knows what the conditions are, but I'm guessing none of the dedicated media horde will be able to fill us in on that lovely detail either.)
Thanks to the entry draft database at Hockeydb, I was able to very quickly do a cut and paste job to look at 6th round draft picks from 1989 to 2004. There was no real method to selecting that particular stretch of dates. I wanted to get a large sample size (429 players) I didn't want to get too close to the present as some players taken that late may still yet make the NHL, or have made it but haven't logged enough games to stand out. I also wanted to avoid the earlier 80s when teams took flyers on Eastern Europeans in the later rounds (like the Canucks taking Pavel Bure in the 6th round in 1989), but mostly I wanted to see if I could get a feel of just what the value of a sixth round pick is.
As I was doing this entry and the attendant math between cleaning up from dinner and getting the kids to bed (while also desperately laundering my hockey gear for my Wednesday night game after forgetting to air out after playing pick-up on Saturday) I didn't take the time to do any sort of round by round comparison, but if anyone else has that data or link to it, by all means post it in the comments.
Here's what I found:
Anyone looking to dump on the Leafs for trading a sixth round pick for a broken down Brad May has about 14 big names to chose from to make their case as only 14 players (or 3.26% of the 429 I looked at) have managed to play in 500+ games, including the likes of Pavel Bure, Daniel Alfredsson, Darcy Tucker, Dallas Drake and Craig Conroy; I'll toss Pavel Datsyuk into that mix (400+ games) as well as Andrei Markov as he's a dreaded Hab (I'll also give even odds that one or more of those names will be in Damien Cox's next column).
On a points per game basis (unfair to those D-men, I know) only three players: Bure, Datsyuk and Alfredsson are over the 0.80 mark (that's 0.7% of the 429 players drafted for those of you keeping score). In the next tier down, only the recently waived Jussi Jokinen is better than 0.60 pts/gm and only 10 players out of 429 hit the 0.5 pts/game mark (excluding Rick Wallin who played 19 games with the Minnesota Wild and Dan Lambert who had a cup of coffee with the Nordiques, playing 29 games over two seasons in the early 90s).
In terms of total games played (note: I'm not double counting here, so it's guys that played 500+; or 400-499; or 300-399; etc.) there's not a lot to choose from. With 429 players to choose from, nearly 70% never played a single game in the NHL. Here's how that breaks down:
500+ 3.26%
400+ 2.8%
300+ 3.26%
200+ 2.56%
100+ 3.73%
1 to 99 15.62%
No Games 68.76%
In short: it's long odds that an impact player can be found as late as the sixth round. Sure, it happens and, like the lottery, you can' t win if you don't have a ticket, but half a dozen names out of 16 drafts isn't exactly inspiring.
Not that I'm being a Leaf apologist here either, Brad May doesn't exactly define inspirational either.
The NHL trade deadline is exactly eight weeks away and the Leafs have finally made their first move under Burke.
Gak. It's a 6th rounder for Brad May.
I do belive I called this one back on November 12 although I was only aiming for a cheap and easy punchline. The odds of a sixth rounder turning into a NHLer are pretty small, although it's likely about the same odds that May will do anything of note for the Leafs before he hits UFA status in June.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this move will generate more speculation into Brian Burke's intentions and efforts than the Kennedy assasination (Conspiracy A Go-Go really is the ultimate source on all things JFK) and the future of the North American auto industry combined.
With that in mind, I wanted to post two things today.
The first is the limited information I could find regarding no-trade (NTC) and no-movement clauses (NMC) on the Leafs that Burke will have to deal with.
The second was cap formulas to get a better understanding of how a trade might go down.
NTCs and NMCs
I've been hoping one of the 173 people that cover the Leafs full-time as a paid gig might look into this, maybe call the team, the agents for Hagman, Kaberle and Kubina or send an email to the NHLPA, I know I'm talking crazy, but one can hope...
This is what I was able to turn up from NHLSCAP, old radio interviews with JFJ and searches through the Globe and Star. Only three players on the Leafs appear to have trade limitations:
Niklas Hagman - has a N0-Movement Clause for the first year of his contract with the Leafs. The clause expires after year one.
Tomas Kaberle - has a No-Trade Clause. It's believed that if (let's face it: when) the Leafs miss the playoffs, there is a window in the summer during which Kaberle can be traded without his consent. If it's the same time period as identified in Kubina's contract, the trade window is July 1 to August 15. Sadly, that's 10 days after the entry draft.
Pavel Kubina - has a modified No-Trade Clause. According to various sources, he can only be traded to a list of pre-specified teams (no word on who submits the list or the number of teams it includes/excludes). Last year, there was a window between between July 1 and August 15 where we could have been traded without his consent, it's not clear if that was a one-time window or if it opens every summer if the Leafs don't make the playoffs.
I could find no other references to any of the other Leafs having NMCs or NTCs.
Cap Space, Cap Hits and Further Evidence That Math is Hard
The second challenge facing Burke as he tries to transform the Leafs is the lack of trading partners with cap space.
With nearly a third of the league hard against the cap and another third up against self-imposed budget limits, the Leafs are likely going to have to take on near dollar-for-dollar salary commitments in order to complete a trade. (Not to make things un-necessarilyl complicated but the NHL salary cap is actually calculated on a daily basis. Team's cannot exceed a per day salary limit of $296,858.64. Nik Antropov, for example, would cost a team $10,732.98 per day in cap space.)
In short: Leafs Nation can dream of picks and prospects, but the reality is most trades are likely going to bring back some ugly contracts.
What's with the post title? Click here.
My final tiny contribution to the New York Times Hockey Blog is now up.
Sadly, the Times is bringing in 30 new bloggers for 2009. It was fun representing the Barilkosphere and responding to the Times' questions. I'd like to thank Jeff Klein for asking me to take part and I'd encourage you to surf over to the NYT and check out what they're up to with their hockey blog.
The final question from the Times, "Besides your team winning the Stanley Cup, what is the most heartfelt wish you have for hockey in 2009?"
Obviously, I went with labour troubles, more third jerseys, a reality show based on 24 hour coverage of all things Sidney Crosby and the Habs winning the Cup. Would love to hear what other hockey fans are hoping for this year...
What's with the post title? Click here.
This work by M. Forbes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
