Corey Perry Re-signs, Leafs’ Season Now a Total Waste

by Declan Kerin on March 19, 2013 in Maple Leafs Rumours, Morning Mashup - 1,041 Comments

Corey Perry

Photo: LaPresse

News broke last evening that Corey Perry had signed an 8 year deal totalling 69 million dollars to stay with the Anaheim Ducks and his newly signed centerman (also of 8 years), Ryan Getzlaf.

Perry agrees to eight-year, $69 M deal with Anaheim; $8.625 M AAV

— Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) March 19, 2013

Pierre wrote a pretty good piece here on it. A précis of this is basically: Getzlaf signed, the team is doing well, I like it here in California. Not too earth shattering.

This is noteworthy to Leaf fans, because, well, he was supposed to sign in Toronto so he could “move closer to home”. Well, if ifs and buts were candies and nuts, oh what a wonderful Christmas we’d all have. The last home town discount I can think of was *probably* Jeff O’Neil and Eric Lindros, 8 years ago and those only appeared to be victory laps for both players as they didn’t do a heckova lot afterwards. Since the new CBA was ratified in 2005 and since “tweaked” in 2012, the free agent market has been more and more barren. Players rarely, if ever, make it to free agency, and if they did under the old CBA, they were given front loaded, back diving contracts that will surely drag those franchises into disrepair when they get close to expiring, and, in the case of Brad Richards, 1 year after he signed it (hint: don’t sign players that can’t skate to the longest and most lucrative contract in the NHL). The funny thing about this — well, maybe not so funny — is the teams that were complaining about money are the ones that are throwing it around wildly.

Also cute to see the teams that were labor hard liners are the ones throwing around buckets of cash. Wild, Flames (O’Reilly sheet) and Ducks

— Joe Yerdon (@JoeYerdonPHT) March 19, 2013

Word to the wise: those players you are drooling over will never make it to free agency. And that high-priced, high scoring top 6 player? They want 1st round picks + your prospects for them if they are rebuilding. That’s not going to change.

Bryan Murray had some interesting things to say:

“I don’t know how you ever get a scorer in the NHL anymore, but if you can get a top-six forward it’s always the objective,” said Murray. “I haven’t identified anybody who is going to be moved.”

“There’s only a couple of teams that are going to say today that they’re probably going to trade a couple of kids. (Teams) want to keep the best part of their core and then try to add to it as well. It certainly makes it difficult to make trades.”

Expect not very much to happen at all this year at the trade deadline. The shortened season is keeping teams artificially in the hunt past the trade deadline and everyone is buyers right now. Players are extremely expensive, for now, and there’s not a heckovalot out there now.

Also of note: Chris Stewart was player of the week last week. So, there’s that.

Frustratingly, the Leafs can do basically nothing with their excess of money, except light cigars and laugh at their fans as they roll around in it, it appears.

Unless the Leafs are in the mood of trading away their top prospects and/or picks, you shouldn’t expect any moves of significance out of Toronto. The teams that look like they have a fork stuck in there, appear to be: Washington, Buffalo and Florida in the East and Columbus, Calgary and Colorado in the West. Please note that Duchene is playing 2nd line and Stastny is playing the 3rd line in Colorado. Something has to give there.

There may be some improvement and there may be some charges made in either conference — heck, Toronto could be in the same boat as the other bottom feeders before the deadline, though that looks unlikely.

While on the topic of that, if this is what a “losing streak” looks like, I’ll take it. We were blown out badly in one game and went down to the wire in all the others.

BOS: Loss 4-2 (empty net), PITTS: Loss 5-4 (SO), WINN: Loss 5-2, PITTS: Loss 3-1 (empty net), WINN: 5-4 Loss (SO)

They were tight in each game, save for their worst game of the season against Winnipeg.

In case you missed the other “hot stove” from Saturday Night, here it is:

Leafs Links:

• 30 thoughts (CBC, Elliotte Friedman) – Always a fantastic read
• Leaf Notebook (MLHS, Anthony Petrielli) Our resident long-story writer, Anthony with the always fantastic Notebook.
• Tradecentre: Monday’s rumours from around the NHL
• Leafs Prospect Update: March 17th (MLHS, Curt) Great update on all the Leafs prospects from Curt
• Kadri skates with second line as Leafs look for ways to shake slump
• Leafs’ Nazem Kadri being rewarded for strong play
• Maple Leafs’ Mikhail Grabovski in coach Randy Carlyle’s doghouse
• Maple Leafs: Players love their new toy to help them shoot
• Maple Leafs: Ben Scrivens tweets bruised arm
• How To Improve The Maple Leafs’ Defence: Learn To Love Cody
• Maple Leafs prospect Rielly set to join AHL’s Marlies
• Siegel: Carlyle navigating Leafs through choppy waters
• Face-off losses key to Grabovski move to Leafs’ third line
• Toronto Maple Leafs sweat it out at lively practice
• Don’t compare Morgan Rielly to anyone else: Marlies coach (Personally, I think he reminds me of Brian Leetch. Alec thinks he looks like Karlsson. I also heard Paul Coffee, and others have compared him to Letang. Not too many fantastic hockey players to compare him with, I hope.)

Tags: Anaheim, Anaheim Ducks, Brad Richards, Bryan Murray, Buffalo, Calgary, Calgary Flames, Chris Stewart, colorado, Columbus, Corey Perry, Eric Lindros, florida, Jeff O'Neil, Joe Yerdon, Minnesota Wild, National Hockey League, NHL, NHL trade deadline, Pierre LeBrun, Ryan Getzlaf, Toronto, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington, Winnipeg Print article