Rumors are flying, still, that the Blackhawks have agreed in principle on a trade that appears to have three teams involved.
The rumor is that the Hawks would send defenseman Cam Barker to Ottawa for center Ryan Shannon and defenseman Alex Picard. The Hawks would also reportedly send defenseman Brent Sopel to Toronto in the deal with a draft pick.
Allegedly the NHL has issues with the deal, and that the Maple Leafs want a higher draft pick than the Hawks are offering. Rumors are that the Leafs will send 21-year old center Jiri Tlusty to Chicago for Sopel and a second round pick. Tlusty has not scored a point yet this season in only two games, and is -2 on the campaign.
Toronto traded away their first and second round picks in the 2010 draft (and their 2011 first rounder) in their summer trade for Phil Kessel, and are rumored to be in the market to acquire replacement picks.
Somehow the two deals appear to be related enough that the Leafs are delaying the move of Barker.
As either of these moves progress, we’ll bring you updates.
UPDATE: Toronto media is reporting Tuesday afternoon that the Leafs are eager to make a deal happen, and believed they had a deal worked out for Sopel over the weekend. However, something changed on Monday and the deal now believed to be in jeopardy. More updates to come!
Matt Stajan is among the Leafs players allegedly on the trade block.
At the end of October, there were rumors that the Blackhawks had been exchanging interest with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which led to a flurry of speculation around the players either side would have interest in if a trade was imminent.
Both teams’ General Managers, the Blackhawks’ Stan Bowman and Toronto’s Brian Burke, didn’t say much at that point. However, the evolution of November has hit both teams, and circumstances are becoming more immediate for a potential deal to go down.
The Blackhawks are negotiating new contracts with three of their best players right now, but keeping Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith likely means someone else on the current Hawks roster has to leave. If the “tagging rule” means as much as it appears it does, that move might have to happen before the three new deals are signed.
The Hawks have said they would like to have everything ready for a press conference when the team returns from the Circus Trip at the beginning of December.
Meanwhile, Burke was quoted by The Fourth Period (TFP) on November 19 as saying “”I have been exploring the trade front since I got here, but it is hard to do, and if this group can’t get it done then the next step is to send somebody down and bring up one of the kids.”
This was really the first time Burke had not only called his team out in the media this year, but also publicly spoke at any length about potential player movement. From the tone of his conversation, it appears Burke intends to get younger in Toronto.
TFPalso mentioned that veterans Tomas Kaberle and Jason Blake could be on the move this year, while Alexei Ponikarovsky, Matt Stajan and Vesa Toskala are all on the block as well. Earlier this year, when Cristobal Huet was struggling, a deal for Toskala and Kaberle had been rumored; it appears now that Huet has settled in as the Hawks top goalie.
If you have read any of the rumorson CommittedIndians, you’ll know that there were conversations between Dale Tallon and Toronto before Tallon was relieved of his duties as Hawks’ GM this summer. The continued struggles of the Leafs, and Burke’s now-public stance that there may be a fire sale, make Toronto a popular trade rumor.
Then came Saturday night.
TFP reported that Blackhawks assistant GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and a Hawks scout were among the 12 scouts/personnel people that attended the Leafs game in Toronto.
The fact that the Blackhawks have apparently set a timetable of December 1 to get the contracts done with Kane, Keith and Toews done, and someone must go, having Cheveldayoff in Toronto might be an indication that something might go down between the Hawks and Leafs soon.
Stay tuned.
In July, Patrick Sharp was allegedly drawing interest.
As we discussed on CommittedIndians yesterday, there has been some trade speculation centering around the Chicago Blackhawks recently that’s starting to draw some attention from all over the media world. Two specific writers, though, appear to be keeping tabs on each other’s work.
In yesterday’s article, it was noted that John Jaeckel is reporting for Hockey Buzz that the Hawks have had discussions with both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes regarding a laundry list of players. The most prominent name on the list has been defenseman Tomas Kaberle of Toronto.
Jaeckel begins his piece, dated Nov. 3, by saying “This is what I am hearing from a reliable source.”
Today, in what appears to be a direct response to Jaeckel’s blog, Tim Sassone of The Daily Herald has come out with an article of his own, categorically denying the rumors. He says Toronto GM Brian Burke has not spoken with the Blackhawks about any potential deal, and that the Hurricanes don’t have any players that make sense for the Blackhawks to add (which I agreed with yesterday).
“A blogger writes the Blackhawks are on the verge of making a major trade, citing a reliable source, and all heck breaks loose Wednesday,” Sassone says. “I think somebody needs to check his reliable source.”
This banter is particularly intriguing because one of the first reports to bring suspicion to a potential Hawks-Leafs trade was from Sassone himself, back in early July. In that piece, Sassone connects the dots between the Leafs having a bounty of good defensemen, including Kaberle, and the Hawks having a plethora of forwards, many of whom could entice Burke and Toronto.
In fact, Sassone quotes Burke directly in the July article, and references rumors from the summer that then-Blackhawks GM Dale Tallon and Burke had been linked. Sassone points out that Kaberle’s salary cap number ($4.25M) is just a quarter-million more than Patrick Sharp ($4M).
Now Tallon is no longer the Blackhawks GM, and Sassone is denying any of the rumored talks he found to be a firm enough allegation to report on just four short months ago.
Whether or not discussions have taken place, or to what level those discussions have progressed, is up for discussion. What hasn’t changed, though, is the apparent fit of the two teams in question.
