Leafs Sign Komisarek - Trade Kubina
July 1st, 2009 by Steve
The Toronto Maple Leafs have bolstered their blue line by adding Mike Komisarek, and have compensated for the cap hit by dealing away Pavel Kubina and the rights to Tim Stapleton to the Atlanta Thrashers for defenseman Garnet Exelby, and winger Colin Stuart.
Komisarek had 191 hits in 66 games last season, which is good for 2.89 hits per game. That would put him near the top of the league on a per game basis. It should be noted that the Habs score keepers have a tendency to inflate hits totals, and his adjusted hits last season were closer to 170.
Exelby led the Thrashers in hits last season with 151 in 59 games played. So again he’s adding to the physicality of the Leafs blue line.
By way of comparison, Kubina only had 91 hits all of last season in 82 games played, so the Leafs are definitely going to be hitting opposing forwards a lot more often.
Exelby and Komisarek immediately make the Leafs blue line a tad tougher to play against. Toss them into the mix along with Jeff Finger and Luke Schenn and you suddenly have a rough and tumble group of defenders.
The Leafs will likely hold on to Tomas Kaberle unless a high value deal can be found (i.e. the Kessel trade). This means the Leafs blue liners now shake out as follows:
1. Tomas Kaberle
2. Mike Komisarek
3. Luke Schenn
4. Jeff Finger
5. Mike Van Ryn
6. Ian White
7. Garnet Exelby
8. Anton Stralman
9. Jonas Frogren
So at this point it looks like the Leafs are a tad overloaded on the blue line again, in a fashion similar to last season. This sets up the team for more potential deals down the line, as it’s likely they’ll try to move Kaberle and possibly Van Ryn or White.
Colin Stuart was a 5th round draft pick, 135th overall, by the Thrashers in 2001. He’s played 51 NHL games since going pro in 2004-05, following a full 4 years at Colorado College. He’s probably going to provide experience with the Marlies as he’s been a regular with the Chicago Wolves for the past 5 years. He does provide some size at 6′3″ and 205 lbs, but he isn’t known as a fighter in either the AHL or NHL.
The value of the Komisarek deal is $4.5 million per year for 5 years. I personally think that’s a bit of an overpayment, but in comparison to deals like Scott Hannan ($4.5 million a year), and Robyn Regehr ($4.02 million a year), it’s not horribly out of line.
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10 Responses to “Leafs Sign Komisarek - Trade Kubina”
By LeafFan1989 on Jul 1, 2009
Which of these deals do you like if your a hab fan.
Spacek + Gill for $5+ mil per
OR
Komisarek for $4.5 mil per year.
Yeah, Thought so.
By Steve
on Jul 1, 2009
Spacek and Gill might be superior to Komisarek at $4.5 million… but they’re older and won’t last as long.
Remains to be seen who has a bigger impact.
By LeafFan1989 on Jul 1, 2009
Spacek and Gill are more like patches at the end to make a contending team and not a top 4 pair d-men. And as you say, age is a big concern. But who’d you rather have at their current salaries, spacek+gill, komisarek or bouwmeester?
By James K
on Jul 1, 2009
Love that we end up with Komisarek, who will make the Leafs tougher, better defensively, and more of a “character” team.
I don’t like that we didn’t get much for Kubina… you can call it a salary dump, but we are well under the cap and dumping 2.5 million barely effects our ability to sign another player.
What I DO like about losing Kubina is now his ice time belongs to younger players.
Suddenly, that right handed shot on the powerplay will belong to one of Anton Stralman, Ian White or Luke Schenn. Kubina is a minute muncher, and now these minutes will go to the developmentally needy Leafs squad.
At the end of the day, Komisarek is a building block piece going forward, and as Pierre said on TSN, Having Schenn and Komisarek 1-2 on right defense is EXCELLENT for this Leaf team.
By Dan
on Jul 1, 2009
Damn, we missed out on Havlat. No help up front?
By leafscrazy22
on Jul 2, 2009
Oh man the Leafs are fuckin BADASS!
By bkblades on Jul 2, 2009
Unless Ian White gets traded, Anton Stralman will not see much ice time for the Leafs and likely a good candidate to leave. That’s too bad, since I feel that Stralman will turn out to be the better player of the two (not mustaches though - White is king).
By Dave
on Jul 3, 2009
Spacek and Gill, come on…..
Spacek has had maybe 2 healthy years
Gill makes 2 healthy mistakes per game.
Gill stinks man on man, Spacek defensively……eeeeeks!!