Leafs Trade Analysis: Two Loonies for a Twonie

On Sunday, Leafs GM Brian Burke pulled off two trades:

Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake to Anaheim for J.S. Giguere.

Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and Ian White for Dion Phaneuf, Frederik Sjostrom and prospect Keith Aulie.

At this point, I've got way more questions than answers...

Anaheim

Giguere for Blake and Toskala is like a twonie for two loonies.

I’m glad Toskala and Blake are gone, but I’m not expecting anything from Giguere. He’s had below average numbers for two-seasons running and is unlikely to improve next year when there’s a further crackdown on the size of goaltending gear.

With little to no goaltending options on the UFA market this summer, Burke has ostensibly bought one more year of slightly below-average goaltending.

Dion Phaneuf

Dion Phaneuf hasn’t progressed as projected or in keeping with his (massive) paycheque.

His goal scoring production has declined every season he’s been in the NHL and he’s struggled the past two seasons.

Many in the game have noted that his play away from the puck is poor and has been resistant to changing his game.

Among NHL d-men, he’s currently 9th in goals scored, 69th in assists and 42nd in points. To put that in perspective, his 22 points put him in a tie with Francois Beauchemin.

On the D-side of the puck, his GA60 is a respectable 2.4, which puts him in the top third of NHL defencmen (73rd among the 212 D-men that have played a minimum 20+ games this year). On the Leafs that would place him behind both Beauchemin (2.13) and Komisarek (1.88).

And the Leafs get all of this for the incredible cap hit of $6.5M through 2014.

Wait.

That can’t be right.

Phaneuf is 73rd in GAON/60. 42nd in Points and he has the 8th highest cap hit among d-men in the league?!?

Wow.

Was Glen Sather a consultant to Sutter on that contract?

Cap Space Moving Forward: 2010-11

At $25M+ the Leafs have a whole lot of dollars tied up on six blue liners next season.

In net, the Leafs have $6M allotted for Giguere while Jonas Gustavsson is an RFA.

Up-front the Leafs have just four guys under contract guys (Kessel, Gustavsson, Sjostrom and Orr) and they’ll cost the club $10.1M in salary with a passel of RFAs and UFAs still to sort out.

Fold in the Darcy Tucker buy-out and the Leafs have $42M+ in committed salaries for 2010-11.

If the cap stays neutral, the Leafs have about $14M to sign 9 forwards and a back-up goalie, which averages out to about $1.4M per signing.

Clearly, something’s got to give here.

The big question, just like every year since the lock-out, is who gets moved from the Leafs blue-line to provide some help up front?

Player Development

Draft and develop has become a bit of a mantra in the NHL. The Leafs don’t really do the former and the latter - development - is where the fall-out from today’s deals could really hit this club.

In an effort to in-fill the forward lines and find some offence, the development curve for all of the Leafs youngsters just got a whole lot steeper.

Hanson, Bozak and Stalberg won’t have the luxury of a year in the “A” with spot duty on the Leafs to develop. They’ll be eating real minutes over the next 30 games.

Given all the holes to fill up front, and the limited resources to do so, there’s also a real chance Nazem Kadri gets a shot a next season right out of the OHL. No AHL development time for the London Knight (and a year of his entry level deal cashed in too).

Of course, the Leafs could run with veteran UFAs on one-year contracts to buy their kids more development time – while that's something I hope the Burke-Nonis brain trust explores, I don't see it happening (I got no proof, just what my guy gut says).

2012: AKA The fine print

Here comes the giant caveat: with the CBA set to expire in 2011, this whole issue of contract hits and cap room could quickly become moot. Phaneuf’s contract, and the Leafs’ salary cap situation, becomes eminently more manageable if there’s any type of luxury tax or an NBA-like luxury tax amnesty provision.

Until then, I'm treating the rest of this season as a 30 game exhibition schedule: the games don't count, it's all about evaluating talent.

Upcoming Dates in the Leafs' Calendar

With 11 pending UFAs and RFAs on the Leafs' roster (one or two of who might actually be tradeable) there are a few key dates Leaf fans should keep an eye on.

January 1, 2010 (yeah I know it was three weeks ago):

As of January 1, NHL teams can begin negotiating new deals ("extensions") for players on one-year contracts. Leaf players in this category include Gustavsson, MacDonald and Wallin.

I know I speak for many Leaf fans when I say that Burke better get Wallin's name on a long-term deal (in the SEL, KHL or working the counter selling fast food at Burkie's Dog House).

February 12, 2010 - Olympic trade freeze.

NHL rosters will be frozen for the duration of the corrupt multinational festival Olympics.

February 28, 2010 - Olympic trade freeze ends.

GMs are free to once again make blockbuster deals like Stefan Legein for Michael Ratchuk or Pascal Pelletier for Brendan Bell.

March 3, 2010 - NHL Trade deadline day.

If you're able to do the math here, you'll notice that NHL GMs have all of four days from the end of the Olympic roster freeze to the trade deadline to sort out their final moves of the year.

That means March 3 should make for a great day of TV for Leaf fans to find out:

• Which Leaf will land a 3rd rounder?
• Which underperfoming Leaf won't find a new home and won't get waived?
• Which assistant GM will botch the paperwork and see a deal get annulled?
• What former goon (now character guy) will the Leafs pick-up for a conditional 6th rounder?
• Who will be the first to say, "Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make."
• That yet another year has passed without a high pick being traded to bury a bad contract
• And no players were moved to help a team hit the cap floor

Trade deadline day has the potential to be almost as exciting as Arbor day, but without any of the moral underpinning.

Rattled by the Rush: A look at Kessel's Numbers

When rumours first surfaced that the Leafs were interested in Phil Kessel there seemed to be three big concerns:

• Would the Leafs overpay (Kaberle and Kadri);
• Was Kessel's above average goal production the result of playing with Marc Savard; and
• Was his shooting percentage sustainable?

I'll leave the matter of value and overpayment for another day (my thoughts on this are pretty well documented already).

The charge that Savard was the catalyst for much of Kessel's production was pretty much dismissed when Kessel potted 10 goals in his first fifteen games. A comprehensive video review of each and every one of Kessel's 2008-09 goals by Arhimedies over at Leafs Blog Pension Plan Puppets also punched a pretty big hole in any suggestion that Kessel was dependent on Savard.

The third concern, unfortunately, has emerged as a real issue at the half-way point of Kessel's first season with the Leafs.

In Kessel's breakout year in Boston, when he notched 36 goals (pro-rated 42G/82GP), his shooting percentage was 15.5% and his goals scored per 60 minutes was a very impressive 1.97. On average, he directed 3.1 shots per game at the opponent's net, and hit the net 71% of the time.

In his first 38 games in Toronto (small sample, I know) Kessel's on pace for 28 goals (pro-rated 32G/82GP) his shooting percentage is 8.7% and his goals scored per 60 minutes is down to 1.2. On average, he's directed 4.5 shots per game at the opponent's net, and he's hitting the net 68% of the time.

Also of note: Kessel is averaging 3 minutes more ice time per game in Toronto, yet his production has declined.

Or cleaned up in and put in a boring old chart, it looks like this:

	Boston	Toronto
TOI/G	16:33	19:48
PP TOI/G	2:22	3:37
Total Shots	216	171
Missed Shots	62	54
Shots on Goal	154	117
Accuracy	71%	68%
Shooting %	15.5%	8.7%
Goals	38	15
Goals/60	1.92	1.2

There are many possible explanations for Kessel's numbers in Toronto to be trending down:

1. His teammates aren't getting him the puck in prime scoring areas like Savard may have;


2. The lack of depth among the Leafs forwards means teams can key in on and defend Kessel;


3. His production on the power play has always been minimal. He's averaging 3:37 a night on the PP, that's 1:10 more perr game than he played in Boston and that extra minute is entirely non-productive ice-time;


4. He missed the first 11 games of the season recovering from off-season shoulder surgery;


5. Some combination of the top 4 plus others than I'm not clever enough to think of.

Regardless of the reason for the decline in his production, I have a feeling Kessel will improve his shooting percentage - both in terms of hitting the net and, more importantly, scoring. (Ironically, in a post populated by numbers, I base that on nothing more than gut. And as a cup-is-half-empty Leaf fan, it feels really weird to be predicting something good.)

One way to get Kessel jump started might be to re-allocate his ice-time.

Kessel is so unproductive on the PP it seems to me he should skip the PP and take extra shifts at evens (or at least move to PP2).

**Based on a couple of emails this post generated, let me be clear here: I am not questioning Kessel or saying he's a problem or part of a problem. I honestly find these stats interesting, I was genuinely surprised when I pulled the numbers this afternoon. I really hope he puts up huge numbers in the remaining 32 games of the season and well into the future.**

Brian Burke Can't Even Manage Expectations

Brian Burke says a lot of things.

He’d pull the trigger on Kessel again.

Ron Wilson’s job is safe.

“Our goal is to make the playoffs; that's our intention. We think this team is good enough.”

I don’t know if I believe a word of it.

There are four simple words that Burke might want to take under consideration moving forward: under promise, over deliver.

Not only are those four words a pretty good maxim, they may also the one thing the Cliff Fletcher did right in his second go ‘round with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I had all the patience in the world for the Leafs to bottom out, shed the JFJ remnants and bad contracts, get younger, get deeper, and hopefully get better.

But if the new GM doesn’t have the patience for a re-build – and sacrificing two firsts a second and a third is proof positive of that - why should fans?

I haven’t been writing much about this team because there’s not much to write about. Going into the season, it was clear that the PK and goaltending needed to be addressed in order for this team to have any sort of chance, never mind success. Neither of these shortcomings were dealt with and the team continues to play some ugly hockey.

How ugly? Even if the team manages to go .500 the rest of the way (a tall order) the Leafs will finish with their lowest point total since the lock-out and their worst season in over 10 years.

To put that in perspective, Wilson and Burke are on target to ice a team that finished 9 points back of the worst team ever assembled by JFJ.

"We believe we're good enough this year to make the playoffs."

Sorry Mr. Burke, you're not even close.