There is little argument that Dion Phaneuf needed to be traded.
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Phaneuf is, presently, 30 years old.
Meanwhile, the rebuilding Leafs were pleased to get out from under Phaneuf’s contract, which still has five years remaining with an annual cap hit of US$ 7 million.
And it is and was all about the future and possibilities, all about what could be and what might be. So the Sens tried to get rid of their worst contracts, in Cowen and Greening.
They also have other contracts that can buried on LTIR (Nathan Horton) and probably still have a few more trades to pull off before the deadline later this month. And the beat goes on.
He also doesn’t have to deal with the 24/7 madness that comes from being a hockey player in Canada (just look at what’s happening to him in Montreal as a visiting player!).
Now Ottawa has to deal with Phaneuf’s big salary until 2021. It was under Phaneuf’s leadership that the team ingloriously refused to “salute” fans after a game they had won. Good luck with that, Toronto. That was the sell. The problem the Leafs had moving him was his salary.
That combination would accelerate the Leafs rebuild exponentially and in Lamoriello’s own words, change the plan. That would be insane, really, and highly unusual for the historically unlucky Leafs.
Finally, if the off-season counts, Ottawa has a Senator who actually lives in PEI, for that is where Phaneuf’s parents came from and it’s where he summers. It was tough. It was tough because you can’t get three better young men.
Leivo got one back late in the second and Gardiner’s goal at 8:37 of the third set up a furious finish.
The Leafs have yet to introduce William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Connor Brown, Dmytro Timashov, their four best prospects up front, to their roster.
Murray said it was a priority for the club to add a left-shooting defender to their top four grouping on the back-end. With Phaneuf locked in the team will have stability as well which will help the development of home town boy Cody Ceci.
Lindberg, the 6-foot-3 right winger from Stockholm, played two years in Sweden before excelling in the OHL. He no longer has to average 22-23 minutes a night and hold the responsibility of a No. 1 defenseman. “There’s always constant talk”.
“It’s not something that I even remember really doing to be honest”.
Bailey went undrafted, but had a superb season with Penn State previous year, finishing fourth overall in scoring in the Big Ten Conference. We all know that any hope of success in the 2016 postseason will be more of the 2010 Flyers variety. “That’s the good part”.
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Jaren Cowen could become a useful player in Toronto after coming over from Ottawa – if taskmaster coach Mike Babcock can arouse him – but new Leafs Milan Michalek and Colin Greening are just salaries Toronto must eat in exchange for offloading Phaneuf’s onerous contract. Occasionally promising, mostly disappointing, seemingly frustrating. The Leafs made news off the ice this week by shipping their captain to their provincial and division rivals and received some pieces in return that will likely see game action tonight against the Oilers.
