Was thinking about potential landings spots for Zaitsev. The common teams I'm hearing fans talk about are Dallas and Vancouver, and I can definitely see some interest there. But I think Ottawa actually makes a lot of sense here:
1) They just hired D.J. Smith, who presumably has a lot of faith in Zaitsev
2) They need help pretty much everywhere and might not be able to attract top free agents to fill those holes
3) It of course wouldn't be the first time they'd helped us out of a bad deal for a defenceman
Using that Phaneuf trade as a template, I'm obviously going to assume we'll be taking back some money from Ottawa. Three names that jumped out at me are the two LTIR'd players (Gaborik and MacArthur) and Boedker. MacArthur has just 1 year left on his contract while Gaborik has 2. Generally speaking these contracts are mostly insured but not entirely, so Ottawa is likely still paying out something here. Let's use Gaborik's deal here just because it's longer and because of his prior injury history presumably has less insurance coverage (although who knows). Obviously they'd be getting LTIR'd.
Boedker has 1-year left on his deal with a $4mil AAV and a $3mil salary and is coming off a pretty terrible year. If the Leafs bought out that contract right away they'd have a $2mil hit this coming season and just a $1mil hit for the following season. That seems like a reasonable hit to take.
So the Leafs are taking on two negative assets here, I'd want something decent in return. Looking over Ottawa's roster and Dylan DeMelo jumps out on me. I'm not an expert on him, but from a glance he appears to be a decent puck moving defenceman with average size. He was acquired from San Jose in the Karlsson trade. Why him? Well he's a right-handed defenceman with a low AVV ($900k) so that seems pretty appealing. In Ottawa he'd be bumped to the 3rd pairing behind Ceci and Zaitsev. He's also an UFA at the end of this coming season so let's just go ahead and assume he won't be re-signing with the sens after that.
So far we've got Zaitsev for Gaborik (LTIR), Boedker (buy-out), and Demlo (RHD). Assuming the Leafs can take advantage of all/most of Gaborik's hit on LTIR, they'd come away with $1.6mil in additional cap space with this trade. Not exactly as much as I would have thought, but maybe they could package Boedker in a Brown trade or something to avoid buying him out.
I'll be the first to admit I have zero idea what Zaitsev's trade value is. I've made my thoughts on his play pretty clear but I also think other teams see a right-handed defenceman who can play a ton of minutes and has experience on both the powerplay and penalty kill. There's enough not-smart GMs out there that I think would glance over the fact that he's not very good in those minutes.
1) They just hired D.J. Smith, who presumably has a lot of faith in Zaitsev
2) They need help pretty much everywhere and might not be able to attract top free agents to fill those holes
3) It of course wouldn't be the first time they'd helped us out of a bad deal for a defenceman
Using that Phaneuf trade as a template, I'm obviously going to assume we'll be taking back some money from Ottawa. Three names that jumped out at me are the two LTIR'd players (Gaborik and MacArthur) and Boedker. MacArthur has just 1 year left on his contract while Gaborik has 2. Generally speaking these contracts are mostly insured but not entirely, so Ottawa is likely still paying out something here. Let's use Gaborik's deal here just because it's longer and because of his prior injury history presumably has less insurance coverage (although who knows). Obviously they'd be getting LTIR'd.
Boedker has 1-year left on his deal with a $4mil AAV and a $3mil salary and is coming off a pretty terrible year. If the Leafs bought out that contract right away they'd have a $2mil hit this coming season and just a $1mil hit for the following season. That seems like a reasonable hit to take.
So the Leafs are taking on two negative assets here, I'd want something decent in return. Looking over Ottawa's roster and Dylan DeMelo jumps out on me. I'm not an expert on him, but from a glance he appears to be a decent puck moving defenceman with average size. He was acquired from San Jose in the Karlsson trade. Why him? Well he's a right-handed defenceman with a low AVV ($900k) so that seems pretty appealing. In Ottawa he'd be bumped to the 3rd pairing behind Ceci and Zaitsev. He's also an UFA at the end of this coming season so let's just go ahead and assume he won't be re-signing with the sens after that.
So far we've got Zaitsev for Gaborik (LTIR), Boedker (buy-out), and Demlo (RHD). Assuming the Leafs can take advantage of all/most of Gaborik's hit on LTIR, they'd come away with $1.6mil in additional cap space with this trade. Not exactly as much as I would have thought, but maybe they could package Boedker in a Brown trade or something to avoid buying him out.
I'll be the first to admit I have zero idea what Zaitsev's trade value is. I've made my thoughts on his play pretty clear but I also think other teams see a right-handed defenceman who can play a ton of minutes and has experience on both the powerplay and penalty kill. There's enough not-smart GMs out there that I think would glance over the fact that he's not very good in those minutes.
