Days before the July 1st free agent market opened up, Toronto GM Brian Burke was quoted as stating “We will be active. I expect plenty of activity despite a shrinking talent pool.” That kind of talk can create high expectations. So here who has been signed so far:
July 1 - Colby Armstrong - 3 yrs/$9M
July 7 - Brett Lebda - 2 yrs/$2.9M
WOW!
OK. I was forgetting about yesterday's signings of free-agent forwards Mike Zigomanis and Joey Crabb, and defenceman Danny Richmond. Oh and on Wednesday Burke signed forward Marcel Mueller from the Cologne Sharks. That's Cologne not San Jose. So Mueller sits about 6th or 7th on their depth chart on left wing. Zigomanis is about 6th or 7th at centre. Same with Crabb on the right side. As for Richmond, he is sitting at about 12th on the depth chart defense.
So what happened to the big free agency splash? Well the reason no offer was made for Ilya Kovalchuk is that Burke has no cap space. He has 21 out of 23 spots filled and $3.8M in cap space remaining. The Leafs are already committed to some big contracts including Dion Phaneuf ($6.5M), J-S Giguere ($6.0M), Phil Kessel ($5.4M), Mike Komisarek ($4.5M), Tomas Kaberle ($4.25M), Francois Beauchemin ($3.8M) and Jeff Finger ($3.5M). The Leafs are committed to $27.775M in defense which is almost half their payroll. The NHL average for defense is $16.5M. No wonder they have such a crappy offense.
So when Brian Burke talks about how he will keep Tomas Kaberle if he doesn't get a good enough offer, well that's just a negotiation tactic to get better offers. He has to move Kaberle and at least one more defenseman. And he needs two more decent forwards or the Leafs will be spending another post-season watching the NHL playoffs instead of playing in them.
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