So St. Louis resigns their captain for 9M x 8 years, then trades him for a worse defense with only 2 years of contract? Just so they dont have to pay bonuses?
Yikes

trading a 26 year old Rielly with term for a 30 year old Pieterangelo would be dumb for the leafs IMO
With everything we know and see with players after they are 30 plus, why sign a guy till he's 38?

problem
teams with 6D depth - two of them rookies; do not make it into playoffs
How many rookies on D playing for Blues, Caps, Penguins, Blackhawks, Kings when they won the cup?
Correct answer is pretty much zero

Nope not to avoid bonuses, to avoid the decline of AP and bring in a Young offensive Dman to play the left side beside Parayko

And on the other hand, Toronto trades a young star Dman who is on one of the best contracts in the league for a guy who will be making 9m until his knees give out.

What are you even talking about?

look at the roster above
Leafs have total of 6D - two are rookies (Sandin & Liljegren)
How many teams get into playoffs or win rounds built like that - the answer is not any recently
Bottom line; real contenders have depth, and experienced depth on D

Oh my god... I thought I was on a different post and your comment seemed really out of place lol. My bad

"Young", "star" and "one of the best" are all at least slight exaggerations. And what pray tell makes you imagine that Petro's knees will give out?

25 = young, 72 pt season and in the Norris conversation a season ago = star which I guess could slide to the one of the best comment, as for Petros knees giving out I have no answer for that - point of the thread is if the blues have been notified by Petro that he'd like to play in TO this would be a more than fair trade for the blues to make over Petro signing in TO and they get nothing it's all hypothetical really - with Petro pedigree and capabilities it's reasonable to say the Leafs would be contenders with Petro in the fold - as for Petros interest it could be argued that having your name on the cup with the blues is both great and historic which would be equally great and historic to have it on there with the Leafs. One could say that but at this point at least for the very near future the Blues would be considered contenders and the Leafs are not

1- He's 26 now. He's not "young" anymore, he's a veteran.

2- He's had one season anywhere near 72 points. The other five full seasons, he's averaged less than half of that (34.2 to be exact). His next highest total was 52, which is a little more than the pace he'd be on this season if not for some games missed to injury.

3- The "one of the best" was referring to his contract. And I'm sure we could both think of a sizable list that would come in ahead of the value in his deal. But since you mentioned it, I don't think anyone outside Toronto considers Reilly a star defenseman. Lots of players that aren;t really stars have had one starring season in a career. And until Reilly has another one, he's in that category.

As for Petro, Army seems to think it's worth a bet that hes the kind of defenseman that willl age quite gracefully. He's not a pure speed guy and he's not a straight bruiser, he's more of a skilled cerebral player like, say, Lidstrom. And I agree with Army's assessment. I also realize that the Blues are the only team Petro's ever known, he's a folk hero for life here, the buck goes further in STL than it does in Toronto and he has a STL-born wife/infant triplets to consider.

None of those are exaggerations. His knees giving out is very obviously an expression. If you took that literally, give your head a shake. The point is he will be well past his prime making $9m.