CBC-Sports

No urgency to move Kaberle

February 17, 2009 01:23 PM | Posted by   Scott Morrison  

If the Maple Leafs trade defenceman Tomas Kaberle before the March 4 trade deadline a few things are going to have to happen.

First, general manager Brian Burke is going to have to be overwhelmed by the offer.

And for that to happen, most likely there is going to have to be a catastrophe elsewhere in the NHL, meaning a playoff-bound team that considers itself a serious contender is going to have to lose a top-four defenceman to long-term injury.

Under that scenario, there is a decent chance a team will be willing to part with a top prospect, a first-round pick and another useful, young player. And that is basically the price Burke is going to ask to move Kaberle.

If he doesn't get that offer, Kaberle stays.

Remember, there is no urgency for Burke to move Kaberle, who is a very good, puck-moving defenceman and is very salary cap friendly with two more seasons on his contract at $4.25-million US per.

Burke would be the first to admit that he likes Kaberle as a player and if he moves him, one of the top items on the shopping list is finding someone just like him. Chances are that can't be done without paying a lot more. If, for instance, a Jay Bouwmeester becomes an unrestricted free agent in the summer, he is going to make in excess of $6.5 million.

The other mitigating factor involving a Kaberle deal is that, for the moment, he has a no-trade clause and has only given the Leafs a list of 10 teams with which he would accept a trade. Speculation is all are in the East and Montreal was likely one of them, so that narrows the field to nine. It also reduces the chances of Burke getting blown away.

Like we said, there is no urgency right now. Burke knows he still has a window from draft day until mid-August this summer - if the Leafs miss the playoffs again - when the no-trade clause is no longer in effect. That opens the field to 29 potential destinations.

All Kaberle has done right now is give Burke an option at the trade deadline and given himself the potential to control his destiny. That doesn't happen in the summer.

So in many ways this is a win-win for Burke. If he gets a great offer, he starts his rebuilding process with a bang. If not, he still has a pretty good defenceman and a chance in the summer for a team to wow him again.

The shame of it for Leafs fans, of course, is the Leafs might have been able to pry high-scoring Jeff Carter and a first-round pick out of the Philadelphia Flyers a year ago at the deadline had Kaberle agreed to move then.

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