We are not trading Sandin.

Not much value coming back to the Leafs for their top three prospects. Why do folks keep offloading Kreider to the Leafs? Strange to call a Zaitsev a bottom pair Dman on the Rangers when he at worse he was top 4 Dman with the good Leaf team.

lol at least you got the rfa contracts right.

You're really discounting just how terrible the Zaitsev and Marleau contracts are.

What would be the cost of trading Staal and Smith together? (now realize that Staal and Smith are both better than Zaitsev and collectively cost 2mil cheaper...). How much do you think you could get for say Staal AND Smith AND K'andre Miller? or Staal and Smith and Nils Lundkvist....almost nothing?. You'd have to be crazy to take on that contract though...and that's why the trade is crazy.

But don't stop there: We know how much this stuff costs. Bickell and Teravainen got dealt for a 2nd and 3rd. Bickell had a 1 year deal too and was less of a cap % hit Marleau. It's the equivalent of putting up Kapanen + Marleau + (because Turbo was a year younger, and not already at RFA so much cheaper) ... Again...Bickell was 1 year and it took a ton to take him. not sure how you're evaluating this. Zaitsev has 4 left and at least on paper...equal if not worse than Marc Staal.

Please re-evaluate.

Dan Girardi was a top pair dman on a SCF Rangers team....this reflects the coach not the player...

It's all about the situations the coach puts the player in. Zaitsev was turned into a PK player and forced to focus on a more defensive style game if the Rangers use him correctly they could get him some value back. Staal was good until his eye injury and Smith gained a lot of weight after he resigned with the Rangers, Zaitsev is a good player who has been misused since his second year in the league. Staal and Smith are bad hockey players but Zaitsev could be a decent 2nd pair defenseman

I have no idea why people keep sending Kreider to Toronto. If they are adding that much salary it's on defence, not at the wing. No chance Toronto makes that trade. Even if you think Marleau and Zaitsev are dumps (which I'm not convinced Zaitsev is no matter what some Leafs fans say) no way they are trading Sandy and Lily this year to move those deals.

Ah yes, the "he's not bad, just misused" excuse that seems to be only applied 1 way. Let's just discount the worse zone start rating in year 1 than year 2 before we talk about "usage"...or the fact that Staal has a worse zone rating in 3 of the past 4 years than Zaitsev has had in any year of his career...


In terms of performance, Zaitsev is one of 6 players to be ranked in the bottom 25 amongst defensemen in ALL of these categories over the last 3 seasons:

Goal Differential
Expected Goal Differential
Shot Differential
Scoring Chance Differential

The Other 5 players are Jack Johnson, Kevin Bieksa, Dion Phaneuf, Jay Bouwmeester, Derek Engelland.

Bieksa is out of the league, Engelland is a free agent, Bouwmeester has 1 year left, Phaneuf has 2 yrs and 10 mil left, and Jack Johnson has 4 years and 13 mil left.

Zaitsev has 5 years and 22+ mil left....

It's perhaps amongst the 10 worst contracts in the league...closer to Seabrook/Parise bad than Jack Johnson bad....

But hey.... what's the big difference?





Please do better next time...

It's a decent trade but I don't see why the Leafs, a team struggling with their defense, would trade two of their top defensive prospects along with Zaitsev. All they're doing is depleting an already bare defensive core and adding to an already stacked offense.