[Triumph36]

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hossa isn't signed through next year. kaberle is on a long-term deal (with a no-trade afaik).

wouldn't be surprised if this comes to nothing.

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True, but even if he was a rental and it did happen, getting his and Sundin's contracts off the books would be sweeeeeeeeeet.

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uh, no.

next year's free agent market sucks and will get worse as the season goes on. heatley's already off the market. hossa will be the biggest name.

kaberle is a top 10 D in the NHL - more valuable than marian hossa, who will be overpriced without a doubt. if heatley got 7, he will want 8 to 8.5.

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I would only consider Kaberle to be a top 10 dman if you include how much of a bargain his contract is (only 4 mill a year).

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Name 10 defensemen better than him, quickly. Chris Pronger, Nicklas Lidstrom, uhhh - then it starts to get hazy. If Kaberle isn't top 10, he's tied for a lot of guys with 11th or 12th. And that contract is fantastic - I thought he'd signed for a lot more than that.

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The leafs roster is such a mangled mess. They keep getting stuck with players that are too old, but still get paid a lot. I mean, I think Blakes a v. good player and 4mill/yr isn't that bad, but 5 years? he's not going to age like sundin. he's too small. he's gonna lose a step and belong on the 3rd line for the last 2 yrs of that contract. Mccabe and Kubina are bad. I doubt they can unload either of them, which means the leafs D is gonna suck for a while. They also do boneheaded things like resign "fan favorite" darcy tucker.

On the bright side, the leafs do have some young players who are stepping it up. I think ponikarovsky is underrated, antropov out of nowhere has been playing like a young eric lindros, wellwood is good (too pass happy but good), and stajan and steen are solid players.

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I think Blake will age reasonably well, but there will come a point where he is a -EV player. The good thing about the length of that contract is that the Leafs could buy him out fairly easily - to buy out the final year would be only 1.3 million over 2 years.

Giving McCabe a no-movement clause was beyond dumb, and Bryan is not a great defender, and will age terribly. Same with Kubina. But resigning Tucker was an absolute no-brainer (did you see how many goals he scored last year?). Antropov has always had this kind of talent, and the Leafs have got a reasonable stable of young players. They're not headed towards a Stanley Cup, but they're not heading towards 2006 Flyers-type implosion either.