Toronto Trade Controversy

     If you haven't heard, the Toronto Maple Leafs made a huge trade with Province rivals Ottawa that included 9 players in total. 9 Players is a fairly large trade but the thing that has "Torontonians" buzzing is the shipping away of their captain Dion Phaneuf. Along with Phaneuf, the leafs traded away Matt Frattin, Casey Bailey, Ryan Rupert and defence prospect Cody Donaghey. In exchange for those players the Leafs acquired defenceman Jared Cowan, forwards Colin Greening, Milan Michalek and Tobias Lindberg as well as Ottawa’s second-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. Dion at Toronto was signed to a 49 Million contract deal and many people thought that his high cap would shy teams away from wanting him.


     Although he played an important role in the squad the Leafs knew that they had to get rid of him considering the Leafs are in a "rebuilding season". They had to get rid of Dion in order to free up cap space to acquire more players in the offseason. One rumour flying around Toronto is that one of the main reasons why they decided to do this is to free up money in order to acquire Stamkos in the summer. One of the players that shared a more important role in the trade was Milan Michalek. He has appeared in 32 games this season for the Senators and has six goals and four assists along with 12 penalty minutes and a plus -1 rating. He was drafted in the first round, sixth overall in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft by the San Jose Sharks. Jared Cowen, 25, has played 37 games for the Senators this season and has four assists and a plus -7 rating. The leafs also acquired Lindberg who was the Senators 4th round draft pick in 2013 has been playing in the AHL this entire season. Greening has also spent this entire season in the AHL. They also acquired a second round draft pick which will be good to get fresh young talent in 2017.

  Some people think that this was a bad trade for the leafs and although they got rid of some depth I personally believe that taking the risk of trading away key players will be really important to sign star Steven Stamkos in the offseason. In my opinion I think that the Leafs did win this trade because freeing up cap will help them get a star in Stamkos and they will also acquire a top three prospect in the 2017 draft which could likely be Austin Matthews, Patrick Laine or Jesse Puljujärvi. Although the Leafs did get rid of captain Dion Phaneuf many people of Toronto didn't particularly like Dion anyways so getting rid of him wasn't really a problem to Leafs fans. I think that by getting rid of Phaneuf, it is a step In the right direction and as a leafs fan I believe that anything to help the leafs get out of this long slump of many seasons without a playoff run then it will help most or all leafs fans to believe that this team could have potential in the coming years.