Colby Armstrong
Flyers officially kick off July 1st festivities by acquiring Andrej Mezaros from the Lightning in exchange for a 2nd round pick. Rumors of Boston centre Marc Savard potentially heading out west to Calgary as well.
As for the Maple Leafs, they will have $10.5 million in cap space to play with today, though that figure does not include the possible removal of Kaberle's $4.25 million via trade or Finger's $3.5 million as a potential waiver candidate.
The Leafs have been linked to defenseman Dan Hamhuis, forwards Raffi Torres and Colby Armstrong, and will also kick the tires on sniper Ilya Kovalchuk. Darren Dreger believes the club will look at adding a 3rd line forward along with a defenseman to "stockpile for later deals". Stay tuned to this blog for updates on signings throughout the day. [more…]
While the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs are in full swing and continue to provide us with some fantastic moments of triumph, the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs are now forced to once again shift their focus to off ice activities.
And so too has Leafs brass.
Despite his team sitting on the sidelines, Leafs GM Brian Burke made quick work of two signing he was keying in on, signing goaltenders Jonas Gustavsson and newcomer Jussi Rynnas to contracts. Â Continuing with the in-house theme, Burke will now certainly turn his attention to Nikolai Kulemin, if he hasn't done so already.
And while we are seemingly quite far away this point, it won't be long before the draft and subsequent free agency period rolls around.
This involves the Leafs, as well as around the league.
TFP: The Los Angeles Kings, Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators are among the teams to have serious interest in Alexei Ponikarovsky. Various reports suggest the Leafs are looking for a first-round pick in exchange for Ponikarovsky, though it's believed Burke is willing to accept a second-round pick and a top prospect."
5:00 PM Update - Mueller, Roloson, Hamhuis, Voros/Lisin.
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I would first like state that I am addressing this rumor because it is, in fact, circulating around the league that Toronto is interested in the Atlanta Thrashers' sniper Ilya Kovalchuk. Yes, this rumor did come to light due to an Eklund blog, but no, it is not fake. In fact, every team in the league would love to get their hands on Kovalchuk. So there you have it, the rumor is true, but it was an easy one to pinpoint by Eklund because every single team in the league understands that Kovalchuk is available, and every single team in the league would love to have him on their powerplay. It's as simple as that. Now to the non-obvious part.
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The Star is reporting.. Colby Armstrong + pick the rumoured return. Update: hearing it's the Thrashers' 2nd but I'm trying to confirm... talk of a [more…]
Five trades that almost happened. Count 'em, five separate deals.  So close, yet so far away.
A very good source has it that Brian Burke saw five separate draft day deals fall apart in the last minute of each.  He worked his tail off on each, only to see the other teams back out in the end for a myriad of reasons. Yet despite these disappointments, Burke was still able to land a very good player in Nazim Kadri at #7, so the draft wasn't a total loss by any means.
Nothing beats slaughtering Cindy "headjerk" Crosby and his fellow flightless Birds. Nothing.
I think we've come to learn that - play your back-ups against the Blue and White as much as you want on any other night - don't underestimate the Maple Leafs if it's Saturday night. The Leafs now boast a 9-5-1 record on Hockey Nights in Canada as compared to their 12-20-9 record during the rest of the week. So as much as they may exacerbate your already depressing work week, at least they don't ruin your weekends. On this Valentine's day affair, the lowly Leafs were by no means their lovable selves from the opposition's perspective.
