Few Moves, Big Impact

Posted 2:22 AM ET | Comments 0

At the trade deadline today Brian Burke didn't do a whole lot. Including the night before only a few deals went down.

The eve of the deadline day one of the few consistent and + players, Alexi Ponikarovsky, was sent to Pittsburgh for a prospect and an aging d-man. When I first looked up the stats on the 2 players we got in return, I was a little upset at Burke, and still am a little. As it came to be the d-man we got, Skoula, ended up being part of another trade and is now in New Jersey, but I'll get to that in a minute. Luca Caputi was very good in junior scoring 51 and adding 60 assists with the Niagara Ice Dogs in 2007-08. He has only played in 9 NHL games and only has 3 points but Burke expects him to jump straight into the line-up as oppose to being in the minors like he was with Pittsburgh. I really don't know if we got what we should have for Poni, Burke said he turned down a 2nd and a 4th round pick to get this deal done. Then today we traded Skoula to New Jersey in exchange for a 5th round pick this year. So in reality we got a 4th rounder (Caputi 111th overall) and a 5th rounder pick instead of a 2nd and a 4th. A gamble but on that could pay off depending on how Caputi turns out. At this point I personally think gettingt he 2nd and 4th would have been better, but only time will tell. And unlike Burke's scouts, I haven't seen Luca play so don't have a full grasp on his abilities, and only time will tell if this was worth the trade.

After that sort of 3 way deal went down not much happened for Toronto. The only other roster player we cleared out was Lee Stempniak. Lee came to Toronto looking to re-kindle his scoring, but it didn't happen. Whether it was too much pressure, lack of chemistry, or the fact that his scoring was possibly a fluke doesn't matter anymore. He's in Phoenix now and we got a 4th and a 7th round pick and Matt Jones for him. I definitely thought we'd get more considering Montreal gave up more than that for Dominic Moore. Jones isn't likely to play in the NHL again anytime soon, if ever. He's had a career riddled with concussions and his playing days are likely over, and taking him in the trade was likely just to help Phoenix clear a little more cap space. I liked Stempniak, not sure why but there was something about him I actually liked, even though he didn't live up to the expectations.

Getting into some more minor deals we got rid of AHL goalie Joey MacDonald. He's now off to Anaheim. I'm a little confused with what The Ducks have done in net the last while. They sent us Giguere for Toskala, then sent Toskala to the Flames for McElhinney, and then got MacDonald from us. Pluss they got Pogge from us a while ago and have now traded him away too. All we got for Joey Mac was a 7th round pick in the 2011 draft. That doesn't do a whole lot for us. Yes it's another pick but not a very significant one. And in terms of Anaheim, who's their back-up, McElhinney or MacDonald? It seems almost pointless to have such a revolving door of back-up and AHL goalies, but it's Toronto I'm focused on so I'll leave the Ducks analyzing to Ducks bloggers.

After the Joey Mac deal only one more was done. We got another defenseman, Chris Peluso from Pittsburgh in exchange for this years 6th round draft pick. I don't know anything really about Peluso but luckily didn't give up much for him, a very late pick is ok with me.

In the end we lost some scoring and pick up youth and some picks along the way. However I'm not entirely satisfied with the lack of early draft picks, the earliest we aquired was a 4th rounder. I really hope the guyes we did get along with the young guys we have coming up are able to step it up, because if we can't find anyone to help Kessel get back in the groove, we will be rebuilding for a long time. I have faith in Kadri, Stalberg, Hanson and Bozak to fill the roles they know how and hopefully turn into reliable NHLers, and I hope Kadri especially can play top line minutes with Kessel, and soon.

We'll have to wait of course to see if these deals work out, but for now I wish a little more had been done to get us some offense. Burke isn't a big deadline guy, and he's said it himself. So I guess we just wait for the off season now.

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