Provincial rivals Toronto and Ottawa pulled off a blockbuster, nine-player trade Tuesday, the centerpiece seeing Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf dealt to the Senators. If you put Phaneuf on a pairing with Karlsson where he won’t be considered the number one guy, we can expect to see an increase in his point production and allow him to settle in defensively without having to take the brunt of the criticism if the team sputters. But for the most part, the players themselves are nothing more than short-term roster-filler (much like the majority of the roster the Maple Leafs are putting on the ice this season).
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The right-handed Karlsson is the most unsafe offensive defenseman in the game. Good luck with that, Toronto.
The Maple Leafs get defenceman Jared Cowen and forwards Milan Michalek, Colin Greening and Tobias Lindberg, along with a 2017 second-round draft pick. He has three goals and 24 points assists in 51 games this season. Six years later, they sell and while it’s not exactly a garage sale price, it’s a slight victory, not a home run, by salary subtraction.
The knock on Phaneuf as a player in Toronto was that he was ill-suited for the role of go-to defender, that he lacked the speed and hockey sense to match up head-to-head with the league’s elite attackers. They will retain zero salary in this deal, which is a coup. He had become increasingly unpopular with the Leafs’ fan base. You would like to think that there is an outright victor in most trades, but in this, I don’t believe it to be so clear.
At least one person in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization is a victor this season. I had no idea anything like this was coming or anything like that, but really excited to have him coming in here.
The 30-year-old Phaneuf was Calgary’s first pick in the 2003 draft, and he excelled for the Flames. Some trades can be win-win, some are lose-lose, and most need to be evaluated as two separate entities, with one side having little if anything to do with the other.
While veteran forward Matt Frattin is expected to stick with Ottawa despite playing the entire season with the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League, forwards Casey Bailey and Ryan Rupert have been assigned to the B-Sens.
The Flyers of Paul Holmgren’s era may have been fooled by their strong play of late, thinking that a player like Phaneuf – or Dustin Byfuglien, who was on the trade market until he signed a new deal in Winnipeg yesterday – would be enough to bump them into the postseason and hopefully beyond. With 56 points, the Senators find themselves four points back of the final wild card spot (currently held by New Jersey) and six points back of Detroit for the final Atlantic Division playoff spot.
Ottawa traded for a big-name, big-money player in hopes of winning in the short-term. Cowen, 25, has earned four assists in 37 games this season and has recorded 15 goals and 46 points in 249 career games with the Senators.
Serious negotiations on the deal began over the weekend, according to the Senators GM.
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“We’re so used to seeing him with the “C” on for the Toronto Maple Leafs”, Ceci said, “but now he’s a teammate so all that’s behind us”.
