Blue And White Beat: Burke injects youth into Leafs blueline
For the second consecutive year, Leafs general manager Brian Burke has engineered a transaction well in advance of the NHL trade deadline. And for the second time in as many years, the long-term benefit of Toronto’s acquisitions may be linked more strongly to the prospect, rather than the established player, received in the deal.
When Burke swapped Francois Beauchemin back to Anaheim in exchange for Joffrey Lupul, 20-year-old defenseman Jake Gardiner and a conditional 2013 draft pick, there was no question as to which of the players heading eastward would immediately occupy a Leafs roster spot. The 27-year-old Lupul is in his seventh NHL season with three 20-goal seasons to his credit. After a back injury limited Lupul’s play last year to 23 games, Burke will be looking for the Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta native to regain the scoring flash from the winger’s career-best 28-goal campaign in 2005-06, which was played under Burke’s tenure with the Ducks.
However the wild card in this transaction is Gardiner, a 2010 World Junior champion with Team USA and a third year blueliner with the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Not yet legally able to drink a beer in his birthplace of Deephaven, Minnesota, Gardiner has 33 points in 32 games this season as of Saturday’s games, and possesses excellent skating ability.
While it’s premature to predict whether Gardiner, a former first-round draft choice, will replicate his scoring prowess from the back end at the NHL level, his introduction into the Leafs organization gives the club another under-24 prospect that includes current AHL Marlies Korbinian Holzer (age 23), Simon Gysbers (23) and Juraj Mikus (22).
As part of the retooling of the Leafs blueline on Wednesday, Burke made a roster move to recall Keith Aulie from the Marlies. Standing at a towering 6-foot-5 and having enjoyed a 12-game stint with the Leafs earlier this season, Aulie showed the poise of a veteran in his return to the NHL on Thursday night in which he battered the opposing the Devils on the way to being credited with seven hits in a 2-1 Toronto defeat.
For much of the game Aulie was paired with captain Dion Phaneuf, who was the focus of the blockbuster trade made just over a year ago between the Leafs and Flames. When Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Ian White and Jamal Mayers were moved, the deal was contingent on Burke’s stipulation that Aulie be included in the package of assets coming to Toronto.
At a ripe 21 years of age, Aulie has the potential to quickly move up the Leafs defensive depth chart, particularly if Tomas Kaberle find his way out of Air Canada Centre as expected. “He’s a big guy that moves really well,” assessed Phaneuf. “I’ve played with lots of guys, and he definitely did a really good job out there. He can really play and be a force at this level. He didn’t look like he was out of place at all.”
Phaneuf may have been anointed with the Leafs captaincy, but it’s not inconceivable that Aulie will evolve to be the more effective player of the two.
It will be interesting to compare the pair of defenders, particularly when Aulie reaches Phaneuf’s current age of 25. At that point, hockey pundits may be referring to the January 2010 Leafs-Flames player exchange as the ‘Keith Aulie Trade’ rather than the ‘Dion Phaneuf Trade’.
Similarly, the challenge for Gardiner is to prove himself as more than ‘just a throw-in with Joffrey Lupul’.
Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and is a regular columnist at TMLfans.ca
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