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Leafs trade Matthew Lombardi to Phoenix for conditional 3rd or 4th round pick

The draft pick is a fourth rounder in 2014, which could become a third if Lombardi re-signs in Phoenix or records a certain number of points with the Coyotes this season.

Obviously, this is better than using the amnesty buy out because a) the Leafs get a pick, and b) retain both of those buyout options for the summer period should they want to exercise them. The Leafs will pay his $500,000 bonus and retain some of his base salary in order to off load the cap hit.

There has been almost no mention of Matthew Lombardi throughout camp and it was pretty clear his place wasn’t here this season. He would’ve just been in the way of the advancement of the likes of Nazem Kadri and I would’ve been more than a little PO’ed if we had to watch another game with Lombardi miscast on the checking line wasting everybody’s time.

A mid round pick is a pretty good get for a misfit piece of Lombardi’s circumstances. In moving him, the Leafs free up $3.5 million in cap space, taking them down to around $62.5 million in cap payroll.

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Alec Brownscombe is the founder and editor of MapleLeafsHotStove.com, where he has written daily about the Leafs since September of 2008. He's published five magazines on the team entitled "The Maple Leafs Annual" with distribution in Chapters and newsstands across the country. He also co-hosted "The Battle of the Atlantic," a weekly show on TSN1200 that covered the Leafs and the NHL in-depth. Alec is a graduate of Trent University and Algonquin College with his diploma in Journalism. In 2014, he was awarded Canada's Best Hockey Blogger honours by Molson Canadian. You can contact him at alec.brownscombe@mapleleafshotstove.com.