Buffalo Sabres Division Foes Leafs, Senators Make Trade

“Hey, Toronto just ditched a huge salary”. Tuesday’s trade of Phaneuf and the salary cap space it will create in future years will only increase that chatter. Lindberg was a fourth-round pick by Ottawa in the 2013 draft and the only piece remaining from the doomed trade that sent goaltender Ben Bishop to Tampa Bay for Cory Conacher.

They also have other contracts that can buried on LTIR (Nathan Horton) and probably still have a few more trades to pull off before the deadline later this month. They wanted the Maple Leafs to act as if the acquiring team was doing them a favor.

“I’m not prone to hyperbole, but I can state that Colin Greening and Jared Cowen being traded to the Leafs is the greatest moment of my life”, added Twitter user Luke Peristy. The Ottawa Senators have been beating the word consistency into the ground this year, struggling to look like the same hockey team night in and night out. The only issue is that Phaneuf’s salary may be a problem in a couple seasons.

Phaneuf told Murray that he was “excited” to be coming to Ottawa, but he will be coming in with the season more than half over.

Of course, there’s a real question mark about Ottawa’s defence now. “I thought we competed well but just didn’t start the way we wanted to”.

The Sens and Flyers are pretty similar teams right now.

Likewise with Cowen and Greening, the change of scenery will do them some good. When it comes to the standings, the Flyers are actually a touch ahead of Ottawa right now – one point behind them but with three games in hand.

Flames forwards Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau and Lance Bouma were all healthy scratches against the Leafs. Let us know in the comments. It’d be lucky. A Cinderella story. I can’t thank the (Maple Leafs) organization enough for everything they did for me over my time there. With the Jets slipping out of playoff contention, there was speculation that they would look to trade the big blueliner. I was kind of in and out a little bit after that hit, just furious.

Sure, maybe their core is further along than that of the Flyers.

Not that long ago, Phaneuf, Kessel and David Clarkson, the big three of Nonis’ bad contracts, seemed like untradeable anchors. Greening, 29, scored 38 goals and registered 87 points over 256 National Hockey League games (all with Ottawa) including one this season.

And they’re not a team like Anaheim that’s better than their season-long numbers indicate.

The Maple Leafs responded 44 seconds later on the same power play, when Holland tipped a point shot from Frank Corrado past Hiller.

Then there’s the issue of Phaneuf himself. “Every time when you get a chance, you have to show that you’ve earned it”.

He may not have been the best captain the Leafs have ever had or even one of the best defenceman, but Dion Phaneuf was never given much help by management to take this team higher. Players like this do not come available very often, and the Maple Leafs could be putting themselves in a better position to go after him than any other team to go after him if he happens to hit the open market in July.