Malkin has 23 goals and 26 assists in 49 games this season for Pittsburgh, which has won six of seven to move into third in the crowded Metropolitan Division. The deals of Greening, Cowen and Michalek were a problem in Ottawa, but they don’t especially matter for Toronto – all three contracts expire next year, well before the Leafs will be ready to contend again, and Cowen’s even carries a rare cap credit if the Leafs buy him out.
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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. The Flames already had lots going on, but the benching of Johnny (Hockey) Gaudreau and others for disciplinary reasons might be the capper in Calgary. What do you make of this, Monday ami?
Shortly after McKenzie’s tweet, the Senators’ Twitter account broke the news of the trade. Boy, was I wrong.
With the Senators, Phaneuf won’t have the pressure of being captain nor the expectation of being a top-pairing defenseman. Senators forward MacArthur said he had been asked about Phaneuf’s character in the past, but never imagined anything like this would happen. So it tells you he was comfortable months ago with this potential scenario.
With Stamkos now in the final year of his current contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning, this trade and newfound cap space for the Maple Leafs will only increase the Stamkos-to-Toronto talk that has been brewing all season (with a little unintentional help from Stamkos himself). “I mean I think we’ll be okay, but it always hurts when you lose a guy like Dion”.
From the moment Phaneuf signed his extension in 2013, it felt like a deal that would represent marginal value if all went well and be completely untradeable if it didn’t. He was reluctant to look back on that time as he prepared to face the Red Wings in his first game as a Senator, focusing instead on his new team’s bid to make the playoffs.
After sitting out the previous three games as a healthy scratch, Granlund returned to Calgary’s lineup on Tuesday and had a goal and an assist as the Flames edged the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“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”. Winger Milan Michalek, who has a fractured finger, will catch up later.
And again, the Maple Leafs getting smart doesn’t mean that the Senators just got dumb.
LEBRUN: Well, the Leafs are far from done.
“He’s been a great captain and a real good defenceman in front of me”, said Reimer.
And many Sens fans would have put Phaneuf – who was booed constantly when the Leafs visited the Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday – near the bottom of the list of likely future Senators.
The Leafs will also scoop up Ottawa’s second-round draft pick in 2017. 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. This is a long, painful rebuild for the Leafs, but honestly Tuesday’s trade was another example of this franchise, finally – finally – acting like a responsible organization that won’t take short cuts anymore.
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“At the end of the day we’re in a business that is about winning and all I’m trying to do is help the Ottawa Senators be a victor”, he said.
