The Faceoff King

Yanic Perreault isn't an impact player.

But he is an impact faceoff man.

So with Mike Peca out indefinitely, and hours after some key faceoffs were lost to Montreal in a 5-4 defeat, Perreault can make an immediate impact for the Leafs.

That said, the price was surprisingly steep for a player who wasn't wanted by any team last fall.

Brendan Bell has proven he can play in the NHL, and the only reason he was expendable is that its the one position the Leafs have depth at.

A second round pick in '08, not this summer, is a reasonably valuable commodity in the NHL these days.

So kudos to Phoenix GM Mike Barnett for converting a player nobody else wanted into Bell and a useful pick.

Leaf GM John Ferguson needed to make a gesture of trying to help his team, meanwhile, and he did that without touching his future first round picks or his top prospects.

This is not the time to be surrendering those kind of assets.

All the Leafs can hope now is that a few more faceoff victories will help a great deal as they face a murderous schedule down the home stretch.

Comments

[Steve]

Should be pretty clear by now to "hockey insiders" that this idea that Yanic wasn't wanted by anyone last summer is patently false.

Yanic says he had lots of options - but he decided to have abdominal surgery and wait until he was healthy to sign.

Leafs had 3 perceived needs - face-off, pk, and secondary scoring - as far as Im concerned they addressed all 3 with this one move.
Brendan Bell will be a solid NHL defenceman - but he wasnt going to get a chance with the Leafs.

Great move JFJ

[Ken]

Well JFJ has once again shown that he has no idea what he's doing. I see, so let's trade a commodity that we have an abundance of (young defencemen) for a fringe player who will play for us for 4 months and will then be gone. Why bother trying to package some of those strengths into something that will help us for years like a prospect at a different position or a draft pick? What a hustler Ferguson is. I'll be glad when the Leafs miss the playoffs again so he is fired and we can get a REAL GM like the Raptors have. Adios Fergie.

[Darren]

When will the Leafs learn? As already pointed out, Perrault is a player nobody wanted once upon a time, and they give up a serviceable, young player and a 2nd round pick? They're setting themselves off so that -maybe- they make the playoffs, and -if- they do, they are out in the first round with no prospects or extra draft picks on the way. Well done, JFJ and the Board, well done!

[Stephen]

I've always insisted on the importance of good faceoff men, but Ferguson undoubtedly overpayed on this one. It did fit with the insanely-overpriced sellers marketplace this year, however, so perhaps in the context he's not quite so guilty as he might seem. It's still far too expensive, however.

Perhaps we can look forward to a column on why the price for these rentals was so high this year, Damien? My initial suspicion is that the salary cap has had two impacts:
-Parity, which means more teams think they can win (and by extension, less teams think that they can't), which changes the marketplace weight.
-Spending limitations, which means that teams can only afford to load up after most of a player's salary has already been paid.

[Kevin Xof]

Getting Yanic Perreault is just another limp response by a collectively weak and failing organization (except at the box office of course).
The Leafs need a goaltender, an executive with some nads and a firesale on overpaid talent....McCabe, Kabina, Raycroft and now Tucker all come to mind. You could have asked Domi to stand at the side of the net on the powerplay with Wellwood and Sundin and he'd have 20 goals...how is that worth $3mill?
Yanic Perrault? You should have kept Brandon and all the draft picks you can get your hands on. The Leafs will finish 10th this year. So that's 2002 since they've been in playoffs, I forget now.

[gary]

Perrault for Green was the deal that should have been made. JFJ, once again fails. Paid to steep of a price for a band aid solution.

[DougA]

Yanic Perrault is a relatively useful player. But so was Brendan Bell, and his potential and upside was obviously far greater. If the Leafs wanted a creative way to address their faceoff problems, they could have fooled around with their lines a bit and given Jeff O'Neill more draws. Plus, a second-round pick is just too valuable to throw away like this. So the question, as it so often is, is why is John Ferguson still working as a general manager in this league. That is the most important question, by far. Is it the decision to not buy out Ed Belfour when he could have? Is it his decision to sign Tie Domi to an expensive two-year deal when he threatened to leave town? Or maybe the trading of the No. 1 young goalie prospect in the world in return for a lower-tier, third-string Andrew Raycroft? Or perhaps the long-term, expensive, no-trade signing of Bryan McCabe, who has handled the puck like a time bomb ever since. We have some kind of general manager, Leaf fans. The man is a genius!

[Michael]

It's a horrible move by a horrible GM.

The bottom line: the Leafs gave up far too much for a role player that no one else wanted. Period, end of story.

It would be one thing if Buffalo was making this trade - trading a defensive prospect and a 65th overall pick or so for a aged player with diminished skills that fits two roles: the ability to win power plays and decent on the penalty kill. I may have understood that. But this is the Leafs that we're talking about - a team that should be more concerned with building a team that will make it into the playoffs every year for the forseeable future and less concerned with filling relatively minor roles. Sorry to disappoint Leaf Nation but Toronto is not going to be winning the Stanley Cup this year; indeed, pre-season analyst projection that the Leafs wouldn't make the playoffs aren't looking too far off these days.

[gary]

Bring back "stand Pat", at least the future won't be traded away for what amounts to a rental player for a medicore team.The only thing that will change is their faceoff futility.

[Gary]

The leafs are a joke as is Ferguson...enough said.

[Bobby]

Absolutely horrible deal by JFJ. The Leafs have absolutely no shot of winning the Cup this year, so why give up potential draft picks? It's unfortunate they do not have a GM who would've realized that, and made a push to give up some of his 'useful' assets to build for the future, but they instead decide to sign Tucker at probably the height of his usefulness.

I remember a previous GM who decided to make a bold decision by trading the most loved player (Wendal Clark) for Mats Sundin, which basically secured the Leafs future for the next 10+ year. Unfortunately the current GM doesn't seem to have that foresight.

The only good thing is that once they don't make the playoffs again, he'll be out of job. Hold on at least one more year Leaf fans.

[Scott Jordan]

Not that bad of a move as it looks. Tucker is the wings waiting to come back and so is Wellwood. This pick up of Perreault is filling the void in the face-off region that Peca left. Could have been a lot worse. I remember past trade deadline incidents involving Quinn.

[Kurylyk]

HAHA! Once again old JFJ screws up. You watch - in a few years, when Carlo Coliacovo is injured and unable to play, then the Leafs will be wishing they had Bell. Perrault? He won't even resign with the Leafs next summer (I hope). The deal they SHOULD have made is to get rid of Kubina somewhere, for no other reason than to get rid of his crippling salary. Then they could have hired a cheaper, just-as-effective defenceman as well as a decent forward next summer.
It's getting to the point where it really hurts to be a Leafs fan. Why bother cheering on a team whose management screws its fans over on a consistent basis?

[steve]

I can't believe ferguson gave bell and a second round choice for a journeyman role player....besides overpaying for mccabe and kubina and perhaps tucker....raycroft is not the answer....what happened to the cujo rumour....probably phoenix wanted # 80 in exchange....this guy is in way over his head as gm....hopefully in july the money will be spent on a seasoned gm...much like the raptors had to do and look how bright their future is.

[Roddy]

Detroit didn't pay that much more to get Bertuzzi. Ferguson is like a deer in the headlights with no imagination whatsoever, If he had half a brain he would have traded Tucker to a team that would overspend and try to resign him in the summer. Georges Laraque would have been a better pickup for what he got.

[Garret Thomson]

Here's a really hard and fast rule that should make it easy for Toronto GMs: don't bring back former players. There is always a reason a relationship doesn't work out. If its the organization, or its the team, its the same reason why on/off personal relationships just don't pan out.

Toronto continues to trade like an organization that has to appear as if it cares for the quality of the product, not one that truly does.

This team is way too political. Too much at stake, media wise. The elephant in the corner is; lets be a crappy, but young and cheap team, and then build around that later. Nobody wants to talk about it. I really wish Toronto fans would just stop buying tickets so that the organization was forced to go low salary and build on young talent. Travis Green? Yanic? I'd agree with most of the posters here about having a fire sale, but you have to wonder if it isn't ridiculously easy to call Toronto's bluff these days in a trade situation. The organization is desperate not to look like it just gives up, in any season, which I suppose is what keeps the casual and/or corporate fan/sponsor happy, but continuously just keeps draining the future upside of player development.

Don't blame Raycroft. He's letting in soft goals, no argument, but a goalie that doesn't win games for porous defense is exactly what the Leaf team architects need. You can't seriously blame a poor season on one guy because the rest of the guys can't score or defend. The fact is, you could put fine arts graduates on the ice and Toronto would still make tons of money, just not as much of it, and thats what makes the desperation to build from the outside in so frustrating. Its blatantly a team run by investors.

[Steve Barnett]

Garret has hit the nail on the head. This is a team run by investors, not hockey people. As long as the money box on Bay St. is sold out every night they have accomplished what they set out to do. And that my friends is to lull the fan to sleep with mediocre pick ups disguised as an attempt to succeed. Promotion is thier strong suit with production being an afterthought.Imagine where this squad would be without Mats. The only prime time guy on the team. We have Raycroft who has yet to steal a game for us. The book is in on him, wait a 1/2 second then put her upstairs. McCabe indeed is overpaid, but I give him credit for standing up and facing the heat. Who would say no to that contract? No sense booing him folks because he is not going anywhere soon. Kubina looks like Aki Berg with a bigger bank account. Sideshow Bob came in a little cheaper than I thought. But the real problem here is the fish stinks from the head down.
There is nobody in the front office who can evaluate talent and then have the ability to react because thier hands are tied by the "media whores" in the front office. Same with Fergie, if Dick Peddie came up to you and said "hey, would you like to GM of the Leafs"? are you gonna say "no thanks" Hardly. So what we have is people who think they know hockey telling the lame duck GM what to do. Until they realize they have no idea, which they have done with the basketball team, and give the reins to a true hockey man Leaf Nation is destined to twist in the wind. Ignorance is cash flow in the front office and the fan is a distant, far off investor with no recourse but to boycott, which we and they, know will never happen.

[Brendan]

I think we've got a bigger problem here than no-panic Yanic: the Leafs are a borderline .500 team, who are iffy to make the playoffs again, and the GM's response (like the several before him) is to do nothing. Don't give away the future. What future? I've been watching this team since the early '70s - what future is everyone talking about? This is an average team, it's been an average team for three decades. No rational GM should look at this roster and say: 'Well, we're close to missing the playoffs again. I better not mess with this. I'll just add Yanic Perrault.' There are about ten players on this team who deserve jobs, the rest should go. That's what trade deadline blow-offs and the waiver wire are for. Lose the salaries and contract commitments any way possible and actually do something in the summer that doesn't involve a 35-year-old forward who wants to come to TO because it's where his kids want to go to school. Man...

[gary]

For a team with mediocre prospects to give a second round draft pick is a good draft is ridiculous. This is a team without a game plan that is just "winging" it. Gedt rid Ferguson and bring someone with a plan and tell the board to stay out of the way. If you bring someone with the board's idea of how the team should be run, then get use to failure!

[Peter]

Everyone REALLY needs to stop bashing the McCabe signing, among other moves. I'll be the first to tell John Ferguson that he's doing a terrible job, but the reality of the fact is that if we hadn't overpaid McCabe last summer and let him walk then someone else would have in a market where there weren't any other defenders that can score like McCabe does...and then how badly would everyone be giving it to JFJ for letting him go. No-win situation, might as well pay the guy what he's worth on the present market. Kubina was a bit of a boneheaded signing, but again, the guy's got a championship under his belt, and he would have fetched that much money anywhere else he signed, and with the shape of the Leafs' current D-lineup we really needed another solid guy, not necessarily Kubina, but what the heck, I never said Ferguson was any good at what he does.
Since when is paying Darcy Tucker 3M a season overpaying??? He's a consistent scorer, especially on the PP, the king of the backdoor and he's a warrior, playing with more heart than anyone on the ice.
I'm still baffled by the Raycroft deal, having Rask and Pogge is like having two aces up your sleeve, never mind just one...well, uh...hmm, now we've got a 25 year old who we can supposedly use now, and hey why not just put someone in front of Pogge on the depth chart that will keep him from getting his shot?
And why wasn't I the least bit suprised when Tellqvist won his first 4 starts with a franchise not based in Toronto?
Why Aubin never got a chance to start is completely beyond me. This is a guy who set a record for rookie goaltenders with something like 15 straight wins to begin his career with the Pens back in the 90s, and then he was Oh-so-hot at the end of last year. So we stick him on the bench and bring in a shaky guy who's not as young as the two, wait, one blue chipper we've got in the system.
I'll give Raycroft the odd wow moment...he's made some saves that have almost made me pee my pants, but this isn't his fault...this is just a poorly managed team.
I heard Roenick was shopped around but didn't attract any interest and will likely retire at the end of the season. Wait a minute, you mean to tell me JFJ didn't try to package Ian White and draft picks for him???