doktordave

"You heard it someplace, not here."

Kaberle:Why it won't go to Aug. 15th

If I'm Brian Burke, sure I try to get the bidding up on offers for Kaberle, HOWEVER, there is are some very good reasons why I DON'T let the bidding go too long.

As Kaberle currently states that he wants to stay in Toronto. Burke could - if he chose to - could go to the agent and say, "Ok, if you want to stay in Toronto, prove it. I'll take you off the trade market if you sign a sweet extension with Toronto. Take a pay cut and I'll give you a better No Trade Clause than you have now. "
Right now, Burke has the leverage to get Kaberle locked-up at a bargain price.

If the situation goes to the limit and Burke has not moved Kaberle, he runs the risk of:
(a) Some of the bidding teams pulling out and making other trades rather than risk coming up empty. (After the Kovalchuk madness, who wants to be left hanging? Certainly not LA again.)

(b) As the trade window closes on Kaberle's NTC, he gains more and more clout, plus a possible incentive to make the Leafs dangle in the wind for a long time concerning an extension. He gains the ability to veto any trade. He gains the ability to play the Free Agent game next year and drive up his salary. Let's face it, Kaberle must feel like he's been dragged through this for almost a year, a little payback might be hard to resist.

Ending the situation early, Burke can say: "I want your best offer by Aug 8th." To both Kaberle's Agent and to the teams offering up a deal. He then has the ability to have Kaberle offer up a contract extension incentive for Burke to scrap a trade to a team who Kaberle may not want to play for. PLUS he gets time to tell a top bidder: "Kaberle is offering us a bargain compared to your trade package. We won't trade him for less than the following players. ________ and ________Yes or No?"

Dragging this out makes Burke undermine his own position. With that in mind I think we'll see an end to this saga no later than August 8th or 9th.

Earlier this week, we started to see a few more teams starting to fill in rosters with the second-tier free agents, and if Burke has any back-up plans for Forwards, he'll soon see those guys jumping to find a team rather than miss camp and risk having to find a job in Europe.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to leave a comment.