monday not-so-randoms: what a day !!!

on friday i heard some pretty serious speculation that a player deal was imminent; this information, coupled with peter maher's suggestion that sutter and sather had been in talks about jokinen, led me to believe that the trade was more than just a standard issue rumour.... as the morning wore on, it seemed more likely that dion (not the joker) was the guy in question... when i examined the flames' players and what other pieces might head east, i deduced that freddan might be a nice fit back with the blueshirts (the fans loved him there), and with mickis' emergence on top line, there would be a sweet opening in the roster...

i was woken up by a text from my leafs fan buddy in toronto, tanzir, "phaneuf to toronto ?" well, you can imagine my surprise that it was a burke deal and not a sather deal (and i gotta say, i would've been exponentially more shocked had i not been cryptically and vaguely forewarned)... dion phaneuf, fredrik sjöström and keith aulie for niklas hagman, matt stajan, jamal mayers, and ian white.... my initial reaction was that darryl got fleeced. i've 180º'd that, now, and i have a whole new outlook on darryl sutter....

the biggest name in the trade is obviously dion, and i definitely got caught up in that mindset for a few hours this morning. when i imagined phaneuf hitting the road, i always imagined a big name player coming back.... but having lived in toronto and *ahem* once supporting the leafs (to a certain extent), i quickly came to the realization that i have always liked matt stajan, and hagman and white are two quality players on decent (if not good) value contracts. this is a good trade, even if jamal mayers is a leafs salary dump (an even-up for primeau, perhaps ?). oh, and i think i even used to joke about getting "sjöström" on my leafs jersey.... perhaps i'll finally do it... ;)

having listened to the brian burke presser i now wonder about a couple of things. i wonder if there's any truth to the last puzzle pieces being, in a sense, sjöstrom for mayers. in my opinion, the player that daz would've been leniant to deal would have been aulie, but with ian white coming back i think it would've been do-able. to me, the defenders would have made this trade a deal, and not the fourth line pluggers.... but perhaps he needed the roster spot for someone else.....? which means mayers is a pawn and likely to get dealt imminently, himself...... ?

a lot of the upset callers to the fan 960 today seemed stuck on dion's potential; that someday dion might be a norris trophy candidate again, and a top offensive PP producer.... well guess what ? someday i might be the fucking prime minister but the odds are pretty huge that'll never happen.... ;) i would much rather deal a lazy, "erratic," unreliable blueliner who may or may not be detested by his teammates for a handful of useful players.... the potential of keith aulie was hardly discussed but TO ME that's gonna be a big deal... i watched the leafs deal a bunch of young talent in the JFJ era and i always thought those guys would come back to haunt someday (lauri korpikoski ? tuukka rask ? i'm talking to YOU guys)....

the radio pundits often made mention that "the winner of the trade is the team who gets the best player." well, "best" is rather subjective, ain't it ??? from the sounds of things, and i guess we'll have to wait and see until we know for sure but ian white seems the real "centrepiece" of this deal... he's been touted as the "mark giordano of the eastern conference" ---good first pass, big minute-eating, sound decisionmaker, PK/PP guy.... well, i'm pretty sure that when you get rid of a 6.5 million dollar player who kelly hrudey refers to as "not that smart" for a 900K potential first pairing blueliner, your team wins.... the pundits suggest dion's got a cannon point shot but they omit the fact that his cannon is RARELY on net (or that "high and wide" is the cornerstone of the dion phaneuf drinking game).... the kid needs some guidance at the very least. he's never gonna get it done here and ian white has a ton of promise.... oh, and stajan and hagman are just gravy....

and i'm sure nobody's happier than regehr....

jermaine franklin completely messed up the media scrum with phaneuf, when he asked "where do you go from here ?" to which dion answered (as if he could answer anything else), "I GO TO TORONTO." it was such a stupid question that i think (hope ?) the answer will be repeated ad infinitum on youtube or whatnot.... soooo amazing.

i admit i'm bummed about freddan because he said kent was his favorite swedish band. also because he said he'd bring electricity to a desert island. and i'm also bummed i cant tell him i'm bummed cause he's been hit with an immense amount of spam on his blog recently.... but realistically, i'm not all that bummed he'll no longer suit up for the calgary flames.... he's good but he's just another really fast fourth line grinder type.... take good care, freddan. xx

i don't think i'm ready to talk about the hypothetical second trade yet, since it's not all official-like, but in a nutshell i'll say this: if it's jokinen and prust for kotalik and higgins then it's a massive fail for darryl sutter. no matter how much i dislike the joker, there's no way he's bad enough to warrant shipping him off for a sack of pucks (one commenter over at m&g pointed out that nobody would make this trade: lombo, prust, prust, vandermeer & a 1st rounder for kotalik and higgins). if there's more to it than meets the eye (as in: it's a stepping stone enroute to landing kovalchuk as a rental) then i'm a fan. count me in. daz can stay....

more tomorrow to be sure.
:)