Sunday, July 4, 2010

Hottest Maple Leaf rumours

The Leaf's offseason moves are not yet complete but may not go as far as some fans would like.  Certainly there isn't enough offensive in the current roster to make people forget about last season's pathetic scoring.

I think what we can count on is that Tomas Kaberle will be traded for a top 6 forward and Jeff Finger's salary will be buried in the minors.  That leaves an opening on defense so I expect Brian Burke to sign a lower tier free agent defenseman, perhaps Shane Hnidy or Paul Mara.  I could see Burke signing Willie Mitchell for the right price.

The biggest move might be an attempt by Burke to pick up another top 6 forward from a team that needs to trim payroll.  There are a number of teams in this category.  Of course who ever sign Ilya Kovalchuk will need to dump some salary.  The most persistent rumours besides the Marc Savard deal are Jeff Carter in Philadelphia, Mike Robeiro in Dallas, and Bobby Ryan in Anaheim. However, the Leafs have very little to give up for these players and there will other suitors if these price for one or more of these players is low. Burke cannot continue to mortgage the future to fill the centre hole in the first line.

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