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.

In Defence of Ian White

Leafs GM Brian Burke announced that the Leafs were offered a second round pick for Ian White. Burke declined the deal.

Some in Leafs Nation have lamented that White wasn't shipped out for a pick, not sure why.

Despite being scratched for the first eleven games of the season, White is tied for 10th overall in the NHL in goals scored by a d-man, 23rd in assists and 25th in scoring. He's tied for 17th in plus minus (yeah, it's an admittedly flawed stat...)

At evens, the Leafs outshoot the opposition when White's on the ice and in terms of gf/ga60, White leads the Leafs in +/-

He's also durable for a small guy - he played in 76, 81 and 51 games over the last three seasons respectively (though that may have to do with the power of his moustache).

In terms of comparators, only Oduya (NJD) and Edler (VAN) put up similar numbers for less than White's $850K cap hit.

The NHL is an efficiency contest of sorts. The more players on a team that outperform their contracts the better and White is clearly outperforming his current deal.

Conversely, a second round draft pick has a 29% chance of playing 100 NHL games.

**EDIT**

Further to Lordosis' comment, here are some additional defensive stats from Behind the Net: Ian White has the second best GA60 on the Leafs D (fewest goals against per 60 minutes), plays middle of the pack in terms of who he's out on the ice against (given the injuries to the Leafs D, White's played way more minutes than he likely should have). He's third on the Leafs D in hits and fourth in blocked shots.