Breakout on Bremner

Deadline was better than expected for me. I don't know about you, but I think it's a great success. Let's go through some of our trades:

NYR gets: Nik Antropov
To gets: 2nd round pick, and conditional draft pick.

No Stralman involved. Good. No Tlusty involved. Good. No picks involved. Good. No first round pick. Bad, but at least we got a 2nd rounder which we were missing, and I'll give an update on the conditional pick as soon as I get the info.

Buf gets: Dominic Moore
To gets: 2nd round pick.

Again no picks, or prospects involved, and we got another 2nd round pick. Kind of a steal to me. Moore goes from being nothing and picked up on waivers to being worth a 2nd round pick.

Tb gets: Richard Petiot
To gets: Olaf Kolzig, Andy Rogers, Jamie Heward, and a 4th.

This is purely a money deal. Rogers is only 22, so he could prove to be a serviceable 3-4 defenseman and help us down the stretch. Kolzig and Heward will both be UFAs come the summer, and this is one of the better trades of the day.

Leafs also acquired two guys from waiver pickups

Former Sens goalie Martin Gerber, and defenseman Erik Reitz from the New York Rangers. Gerber comes in and becomes our number one goalie, with Toskala done for the year.

All in all today was a success and I wish both Antropov and Moore plenty of success on their new teams.

Both Moore and Antropov will be out of the lineup for tonight's game against the Devils.

Let's see this either means they're injured(Yeah right.)or that they're going to be traded soon. I like the latter. Now we get to see how both Blake, Stajan, and Ponikarovsky perform without these guys. Here's to a busy day ahead Leafs fans.

Moore and his agent have been in talks with the Leafs, and he's still asking for top 6 money. He wants 2.75M per season while the Leafs have left with less than 2M on the table. Negotiations have been stopped at the moment, but they're not completely done.

The Star is reporting that and Columbus and the Leafs are in talks with a trade around Pascal Leclaire for Antropov and Stralman if we're rebuilding why the hell are we trading away Stralman for Leclaire?!

Burke will be on the Fan at 3:05 today. Hopefully this rumor gets shot down.

The link for those who missed it.

Basic Recap of what he said.

- Likes Poni, has not had an offer worth making.
- Antropov has started to play great lately. Doesn't deserve credit for Antropov turning it on. Only Antropov controls how Antropov plays. Has not received a decent offer for him yet.
- He'll know by tonight if he can resign Moore or not. If not, he'll be traded.
- Likes White. Turned down a late 2nd rounder last week for him. He is not untouchable, but no offers even close to what he'd pull the trigger for.
- Has not inquired about Jay Bouwmeester. The offer would be too big for a "renovating" team to make.
- Has had no talks with Bob Murray about Pronger. Makes no sense to do that.
- Denies the Bruins/Kaberle trade.
- Was offered a Hockey Trade yesterday. Chewing on it at the moment. Likely going to reject. The trade has the Leafs receiving 1 player and 1 pick and the other team is receiving 2 players.

I think that's everything.

OK so what we can get from this is that Burke's not rebuilding per se, but just renovating whatever the hell that means, looks like he can wait a while for a crazy GM to overpay. He said his responses range from "Let me think about it." to "Drop dead."

And today at Leafs practice Jason Blake and Ron Wilson decided to lighten the mood up by playing a prank on everyone. Jason Blake decided to leave practice a little early with a grim look on his face, and as he was leaving he shook Wilson's hand. Gotta love Blake.

There's way to many rumors around this time, gets me all hyped up for the trade deadline day.

Ok so let's start with our biggest trade chip: Tomas Kaberle. The Boston Bruins are rumored to have offered Joe Colborne(He was their 08 first round draft pick) 09 1st Round pick, and their 09 3rd round pick. I'm meh on that offer. It's ok, but not that great. Colborne would grow into a top 6 role pretty easily, but that trade still isn't young roster player, top prospect, 1st(Yeah I'm still optimistic that we'll get that).

UPDATE: Burke has denied this rumor, but the man's a lawyer and a NHL GM. Take it with a grain of salt.

Another one was Ponikarovsky for a 2nd and a 4th. I can't discuss the things I would do if that were to happen on a public blog. Sorry BOB fans.

We've also got the Antropov, and Dominic "I want top 6 money" Moore to Chicago for a 1st+. That's about as realistic a rumor we've got today, and I really see one of those guys in a Blackhawks sweater on March 4th.

The above picture makes as much sense as Accardo becoming a starter. Cito decided Accardo could be a candidate to start, and Janssen is a candidate for the bullpen because he can be fit into the long relief role. This makes as much sense as saying Travis Snider should play 2B because he isn't over 6 foot and therefor fits the stereotypical 2B body.

Accardo has never started in his life, so whats the point of starting him now? He's a quality reliever, he does the job out of the pen well, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

For once, I'm hoping that the Jays do what JP wants and have Janssen in the rotation, and Accardo in the bullpen. This works, this is how Jays world should be. DON'T SCREW UP CITO YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE!

UPDATE: I was too lazy to get up and turn off the radio after listening to the game today, so I suffered (thats some sarcasm right there) through listening to Wilner. A caller decided to ask the question on all of our minds: WHY IS ACCARDO GOING TO BE STARTING!!!. Wilner thinks Cito just doesn't know any pitcher's names, and just got Accardo mixed up with someone else. In conclusion, Accardo will not be starting, the polar ice caps have not switched, and I am not the King of England. All is right in the world once more.

Another win, another draft spot lost. Are us Leafs fans not done with mediocrity yet? Because it sure as hell looks like the direction we're going to go in. Not to mention the non-tankers I have to deal with. "4 game win streak!!!! Booyah!". I'd love to break it you that the Leafs have to go 21-5-0 down the stretch to make the playoffs, so 9th place here we come! It's up to Burke to save us and clean this mess up. Waiting for TDD(Trade Deadline Day) so the fans can finally know which direction this team really wants to go in. That's all for now. Golf Leafs Golf.