Leafs’ Phaneuf traded to rival Senators

By Dylan Fremlin

The Dion Phaneuf era has officially come to an end for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Leafs shipped their captain to their arch rivals, the Ottawa Senators Tuesday morning in a nine player deal. It was the first trade between the two teams in almost 18 years.

There were bad contracts aplenty in this trade with the Leafs taking back three short term contracts to get rid of Phaneuf’s remaining five years at $7 million per year. Milan Michalek, Jared Cowen and Colin Greening all came to the Leafs in the trade as salary dumps. The three contracts combined cost a little more annually than Phaneuf’s, but they all expire at the end of next season. This is perfect for the position the Leafs are in right now. They don’t expect to be a team close to the salary cap next season. This deal gives them flexibility in the long term when they expect to be contenders. The Leafs still managed to obtain a solid prospect in Tobias Lindberg and a 2017 second round pick in the deal.

The Leafs also sent forwards Matt Frattin, Casey Bailey, Ryan Rupert and long shot prospect Cody Donaghey to the Senators in the deal. Frattin, Bailey and Rupert had been playing for the Leafs AHL affiliate, Toronto Marlies and are not expected to become NHL players. Donaghey is a young defenceman who signed as a free agent out of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The purpose of these four players being thrown into the deal is to free up space on the team’s 50 contract limit. In short, the Leafs opened up a contract spot which is helpful to them as they expect to be sellers at the upcoming trade deadline. This means they can take on an extra contract that a team is trying to get rid of if it will increase their return in a trade. This deal looks like a home run for the Leafs and a big risk for the Senators.

To be fair, the Senators are in a tough position. Superstar defenceman, Erik Karlsson, is in his prime and the Senators have to try to win with him. A player like Karlsson doesn’t come around very often to say the least. Karlsson is sitting in third place in points in the NHL more than half way through the season and he is a defenceman. Senators General Manager Bryan Murray clearly realizes what a failure it would be to never even sniff a Stanley Cup with a special player like Karlsson on your roster. Murray decided to take on a contract that will make them worse in the future to get a player that will improve their team right now. It is tough to argue that this trade makes the Senators contenders as they are five points out of a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.

This time last year the Leafs still had David Clarkson, Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf’s massive contracts on the books. All three have since been moved while only retaining $1.2 million on the Kessel deal. If you told any Leafs fan a year ago this would be the case, they would have laughed in your face. It was a foregone conclusion there would be no way to move all three without taking back a significant amount of salary.

Kudos to the new Leafs front office for ridding this team of three onerous contracts while gaining assets for the future.

TORONTO ACQUIRES:

• Jared Cowen
• Milan Michalek
• Colin Greening
• Tobias Lindberg
• 2017 second round pick

OTTAWA ACQUIRES:

• Dion Phaneuf
• Matt Frattin
• Casey Bailey
• Ryan Rupert
• Cody Donaghey