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What are the Leafs
and Fantasy Hockey owners going to do over the next 6 to 8 weeks? For all
intents and purposes
Curtis
Joseph's regular season is done. And unless the Leafs do something
drastic, their playoff hopes could be done as well. So let's take a couple
of minutes to figure out what's going to happen.
Well the first and obvious answer is that the Leafs are going to go out
and find themselves another goalie. Well, this could be easier said than
done. The team is very thin on prospects and their bottom 10 draft
position makes their picks equally unattractive. And to top it off they
don't have the depth to move one of their existing players. Earlier in the
season there had been talk of a
Nikolai
Antropov for
Kevin
Weekes deal. Antropov's latest knee injury put the kibosh on that
trade.
Taking a look at the Toronto system reveals very little.
Petr
Svoboda (the young guy, not the old guy who's had his bell rung too
many times) is a possibility but he's been slow to develop and would need
to be part of a package. Young forwards like
Paul
Healey,
Alyn
McCauley, and
Alexei
Ponikarovsky are attractive. But again, none are going to land you a
premier netminder. A team like Tampa is not looking for prospects. They
need mid-level players with some NHL experience instead of young players
with little or no time in the show. As a result, it seems less and less
likely a deal with the Bolts will play out.
So what are the other options? Well there's
Jamie
Storr or
Stephane
Fiset from the Kings. Fiset is a definite possibility considering he
has a $2+ million salary and was exposed in the waiver draft. The price
would be relatively cheap (in fact he could probably be had for a draft
pick and maybe a prospect) but the question is whether or not he's good
enough help the Leafs in their playoff run. Then there's
Mike
Vernon. Again, he'd be cheap. But you need to ask yourself - why?
An option that could happen sooner rather than later is
Ed
Belfour. With the Stars currently sitting out of a playoff spot and
Belfour a free agent at the end of the year, they could use a nice package
of youngsters (including maybe the Leafs young Swedish netminder
Mikael
Tellqvist).
The long and the short of it is this. If you own a Leaf, watch out for
your +/-. It could get ugly over the short term. If you thought you were
being smart by picking up
Corey
Schwab last night, think again. The Leaf's "D" just isn't
good enough to protect this career minor leaguer. The other thing to watch
is who they pick up in return. It needs to be someone comfortable with
turning over the reigns to CuJo come playoff time in the hopes they will
be given a shot to make the team as a #1 next season if Joseph leaves.
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