Toronto Maple Leafs

Trade Possibilities

As the GM meetings are underway I felt it might be worthwhile to explore some of the considerations for Leafs fans around trades and trading from the perspectives of other clubs.  Last season there were 51 trades of note in the NHL over the entire season.  Of those, only 12 happened before January.  That isn’t to say no significant deals were worked out prior to New Years eve.

On November 7th, the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning swung a deal that saw Matt Carle head to Philly along with San Jose’s 3rd round pick in the 2009 draft in exchange for Steve Downie, Steve Eminger, and Tampa’s own 4th round pick in the 2009 draft, which Philly had obtained in an earlier transaction.

Carle is currently tied for the league lead in +/- and playing well alongside Chris Pronger for the Flyers, while Downie is regularly patrolling the right wing as a pest for the Lightning, who are going in a younger direction with the likes of Stamkos, Downie, and Meszaros.

The Leafs themselves were involved in a significant November transaction on the 24th, moving Alex Steen and Carlo Colaiacovo to St. Louis in exchange for Lee Stempniak, who at the time was scoring better than a point per game for the Blues.  The Blues went on to make the playoffs last year, while Stempniak has been one of the Leafs more impressive forwards this season, whilst playing the point on the power play with Tomas Kaberle.

That being said, the obvious result is that generally speaking, significant deals are few and far between, but that doesn’t stop teams from trying to hit a home run this time of year.  Last year the Tampa Bay Lightning and Philadelphia Flyers both made 3 deals before the end of November, while Nashville and Dallas both made 2 moves each.  Early on last season, the Flyers struggled a bit out of the gate, the Lightning were basically bottom feeders, and Nashville and Dallas were victims of offensive and defensive woes respectively.

This year the bottom feeders around the NHL are Carolina, Florida, Minnesota, Anaheim, Nashville, Montreal, St. Louis, and yes… the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Atlanta are down in that group for now also, but their best player is injured, and they have played fewer games so far.

Detroit, Edmonton, and Vancouver are all on the outside looking in at a playoff spot right now, while in the East, the Islanders and Lightning are both just below the cutoff for 8th place.

Of those clubs, who is likely looking for a quick fix or a shake up?

Florida is perrenially a bottom feeder, and may decide to tear things down again and shift in a new direction if things aren’t working with some of their key offensive players.  Nathan Horton, and Stephen Weiss haven’t really gotten the job done since Olli Jokinen left town, and David Booth is out with serious concussion issues.  The Panthers D is also a fair bit worse minus the skill set of Jay Bouwmeester.

Carolina can’t score, and their defense is almost as atrocious as the Leafs.  They have the oldest roster in the NHL, and they have recently replaced injured goalie Cam Ward with a .500 net-minder from the AHL in Manny Legace.  Erik Cole is injured.  Eric Staal is injured.  Ray Whitney and Tuomo Ruutu were injured until recently returning.  Rod Brind’Amour seems to have lost a step at 39.  Their team D is giving up too much, and Paul Maurice is probably contemplating his next move if he’s cut loose from his coaching job.

Minnesota is in transition from being a defensive team that gives up nothing (see the League’s best PK and Nicklas Backstrom in net), to a team that gives up a bit in order to score more.  They brought in Havlat for this year, but they’re still fairly reliant on veterans like Andrew Brunette and Owen Nolan for offense.  Their secondary scoring hasn’t done much this season, especially since Pierre Marc-Bouchard has been injured.  It will be interesting to see if they consider moving any of the pieces they’ve got in order to address issues with offense.  Brent Burns is a -13, and Martin Havlat is a -12.  Burns would fetch a significant package in return, but he’s one of the best young blue liners in the NHL and he’s locked into a very affordable contract.

Detroit’s goaltending has been suspect, as Osgood hasn’t looked very good in net at times this season.  Their team is another year older, and most of their depth flew the coop or else is injured.  No Hudler, Hossa, Franzen, Filppula, or Williams is hurting this team.  Nik Lidstrom only has 5 points, but he is a +8 on the year.  Brian Rafalski has 7 points and is a -1.  Overall they may be relying too much on an aging blue line, and in essence are headed for a decline after a solid 15 year run on top.  Do they try to shake things up via trade?

In Edmonton, Robert Nilsson has 4 points and is a -12 in 12 games.  Does he need a change of scenery?  He’s on pace for his 3rd consecutive season with a decline in points, currently trending towards 5 goals, and 14 assists, for 19 points.  He’ll probably end up with around 25 points at his current pace in reality because he’s missed some games.  He had 29 points last year, and 41 the year before that.  If he isn’t producing perhaps the Oilers should see what they can get for the 5′11, 185 lb skill player.

Vancouver is missing it’s leading goal scorer from the past few years in Daniel Sedin as a result of injury.  Henrik is proving he can produce without his brother though, and for the first time, the Sedin’s are probably going to receive credit for being individual players as a result.  In all likelihood, this is a good thing for Henrik and Daniel’s development as they might be able to play on separate lines without screwing up the entire team’s chemistry.  Ryan Kesler is scoring and playing solid D.  Mikael Samuelsson is doing what he was brought in to do and is 3rd on the team in scoring with 14 points in 19 games.  Beyond that though, the Canucks have no real threats up front.  Demeitra is gone for the year with shoulder surgery.  Daniel Sedin is out long term.  Michael Grabner is injured.  Mason Raymond, Alexandre Burrows, Kyle Wellwood, and Steve Bernier aren’t doing enough to provide secondary punch on offense.  In fact, Wellwood has only 1 assist in 15 games this season (so much for rediscovering his game on the west coast).  Could the Canucks afford to part ways with the likes of Bernier or Raymond in order to bring in the likes of Mayers, Blake, and Stajan as veteran support to a line up that’s supposed to contend?

Anaheim has a much discussed issue with $6 million dollar backup goalie, J.S. Giguere, but perhaps they should look to other areas for improvement.  Ryan Getzlaf has 1 goal on the season.  Saku Koivu has 8 points in 15 games.  The only forwards with over 10 points are Perry, Getzlaf, Selanne, and Ryan.  They could use some secondary scoring help, especially since Selanne is likely skating in one of his final seasons, and Koivu is approaching retirement.  Perhaps if they dealt one of their better young players (i.e. Ryan), they might be able to entice another team to provide multiple players in return.  For instance, if the Leafs considered offering up 2 or 3 of Blake, Stajan, Stempniak, or Hagman, what would the Ducks be inclined to say in response?

Nashville’s offense is anemic to say the least.  Martin Erat and David Legwand have combined for 1 goal and 7 assists after 16 games, and have a combined -15 rating.  This is a team that needs a serious upgrade in forward skill up front, and scarily enough, the Leafs forwards are producing at a better level.  They have some talented youngsters like Mike Santorelli, and Ryan Jones, both of whom have lit the AHL up to a degree with the Millwaukee Admirals, and begun to make their way into the NHL.  Jones played 4 years at the University of Miami (Ohio) while Santorelli suited up at Northern Michigan University.  Both would be comparable to Stålberg, Bozak, and Hanson in the prospect department.  Andreas Thuresson, a 6′1″ 211 lb RW would add a sizable Swedish component to any team picking him up from the Predators.  He has 2 assists in his first 4 NHL games.

St. Louis has a lot of decent younger players, but they may wish to shake things up with a coaching move before they consider a trade.  That being said, David Backes has 1 goal and 3 points in 16 games, after scoring 31 goals and 54 points in playing all 82 games last season for the Blues.  He also registered 165 penalty minutes and would do a good job playing physically for any team that picked him up.  Backes is now 25 years of age, and declining is probably not something the Blues were expecting from him at this stage of his development.  With the large number of offensively skilled forwards on the Blues (Perron, McDonald, Boyes, Tkachuk, Kariya, Oshie, Berglund, McClement, Crombeen, heck even Alex Steen) then one begins to realize that there may be an issue around giving players like Backes enough minutes to excel offensively.

For the reasons I just outlined, I would argue that the best potential trade partners for the Leafs are likely St. Louis, followed by Florida, Carolina, and Vancouver.  St. Louis needs experienced checking forwards, and they have a wealth of skill players.  The Leafs have a lot of 3rd line grinders, but not enough top 6 forwards.  If the Blues are willing to part with the likes of Backes, Eller, or Berglund, in exchange for players like Stajan, Mitchell, or Mayers, then both teams gain from the deal.

Florida may just want to make a change, while Carolina could use a serious injection of youth.  Unfortunately, most teams don’t want Carolina’s aging players, and Florida has limited options in the trading department.  What Carolina does have is prospects. Carolina boasts the likes of Drayson Bowman, and Jerome Samson.  Florida’s farm team is the best in the AHL (Rochester) but they are led by some serious vets who do well at the AHL level but haven’t done much in the NHL.  If they want to see something change, they’ll have to give up roster players.

We’ll see if the GM meetings bear any fruit in the next few weeks, but a lot of the chatter may turn out to be laying the groundwork for deals later on in the season.