Toronto acquires Cody Franson/Matt Lombardi for Brett Lebda/Robert Slaney

To TOR:

Cody Franson
Matthew Lombardi
4th 2013 (if Lombardi doesn't play 60 games over next two seasons)

To NSH:

Brett Lebda
Robert Slaney
4th 2013 (if Lombardi plays 60 games over next two seasons)

Who's Robert Slaney? He better be f-ing amazing or this is the worst deal in recent memory (aside from the Varlamov one).

Nope, Slaney sucks, I want to barf right now. Franson for free to the Leafs, great stuff.

Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

Because of the qualifying offer mistakes potentially. I read that somewhere, they're prepping for the worst there for that + Weber. Still...Franson?

So where was Ottawa when this happened? lol

I guess we don't particularly need Franson right now, and Lombardi is more of a cap dump with his injury history, but this is as slanted as they come.

SpezDispenser wrote:

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

Because of the qualifying offer mistakes potentially. I read that somewhere, they're prepping for the worst there for that + Weber. Still...Franson?

I guess they do have Blum, Ellis, Josi, Roussel, and Ekholm as far as young d-men go so it's not a devastating loss. I guess they felt it was worth it to get rid of Lombardi's salary (with a view towards keeping Weber and Suter). Still, I agree. Seems like too nice a piece to part with for something like that.

asq2 wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

Because of the qualifying offer mistakes potentially. I read that somewhere, they're prepping for the worst there for that + Weber. Still...Franson?

I guess they do have Blum, Ellis, Josi, Roussel, and Ekholm as far as young d-men go so it's not a devastating loss. I guess they felt it was worth it to get rid of Lombardi's salary (with a view towards keeping Weber and Suter). Still, I agree. Seems like too nice a piece to part with for something like that.

What bugs me is that the Preds didn't call around and settle on a nice, safe 2nd round pick from someone instead of giving him to the Leafs. Dammit, but...that's life I guess, we got Filatov for a song, so we shouldn't complain I guess.

By the way, I have to say I'm starting love the Preds. I definitely feel like they make the best of being a "small-market" team. They invest heavily in goal-tending and defence - which makes sense, given those two positions play the most - and then go after two-way players on offence who won't charge exorbitant salaries but who can play their play-off system to perfection.

They've only made it out of round 1 once but the past two seasons they've lost to the SC winners and the SC runners-up.

Although I suppose the counter-argument is having a big-time scorer/more offensive team might draw in better crowds. It's too bad they lost Radulov.

EDIT: I also feel, although MacLean signals a pursuit of the Detroit system (which I love more than any other in the game right now) that we kinda have a Nashville style team in the making. Lehner in goal, Karlsson, Cowen, Rundblad, Wiercioch, Lee, Gryba, Boro etc. on D, and then a number of "two-way" guys like Zibanejad, Noesen, Silfverberg, and to a lesser extent Condra, Greening et al. up front. Of course we also have pure offensive guys like Puempel, Filatov, Butler, and Petersson, and a legit #1C in Spezza.

I guess it depends on what we do with next year's first-round pick. It wouldn't surprise me to see us go defence (Murray, Ebert) considering the three best forwards at this point are Russian (albeit they'll all be in the CHL next year and Galchenyuk IIRC has decided on playing for the US internationally).

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

They have about $29M in space after this deal. I can't imagine how "clearing cap-space" could possibly be necessary, even with the potential QO fallout (I don't really know what to expect with that).

Wow, great move for The Leafs, but again, they are starting to throw a bunch of random peices together... not sure why Nashville did this, maybe they are making room for Ellis.

spader wrote:

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

They have about $29M in space after this deal. I can't imagine how "clearing cap-space" could possibly be necessary, even with the potential QO fallout (I don't really know what to expect with that).

I think he means in terms of their internal cap. This is a team that has never spent very much money at all. And their internal cap mustn't be too much more than the cap floor. After they sign Weber and the other RFAs, and Ellis or Josi's 1M+ contract added in, they'll probably arrive at that number.

Bass Destruction wrote:

spader wrote:

asq2 wrote:Yeah, WTF? Great move by the Leafs. Is this to clear cap-space on Nashville's part or something?

They have about $29M in space after this deal. I can't imagine how "clearing cap-space" could possibly be necessary, even with the potential QO fallout (I don't really know what to expect with that).

I think he means in terms of their internal cap. This is a team that has never spent very much money at all. And their internal cap mustn't be too much more than the cap floor. After they sign Weber and the other RFAs, and Ellis or Josi's 1M+ contract added in, they'll probably arrive at that number.

Fair enough. It just seems odd to talk about "clearing cap-space" on a team that's just under $30M away from the ceiling.

Haha, yeah, I meant it in terms of clearing salary in order to have the money to re-sign someone like Suter (next year). I think saying "cap-space" is just a force of habit.

sucks for them. in all honesty this deal should of never happened. if the preds were playing with real money instead of nashville small bucks money they could of easely signed Weber and figured Suter next year. If I was a preds fan i'd be super pissed off right now. Sure you get to keep your team because of a self-imposed cap but i doubt you ever make the finals on that kind of buget. you can only develop players from within so far until you need to A pay them big money to keep them and B bring in a few aquisitions to bring you over the top. I like what the preds have done over the years but they are victimes of their own selves. it's sad really