15 Jan 2015 17:16:21
In Order if I were Brendan Shanahan I would do the following

1, FIRE NONIS,,,,, he's responsible for the mess. He was the assistant to Burke when they handed out some pretty dumb contracts. And is solely responsible for some of the other really dumb contracts.

2. Trade in this order ( as you can its by the value of the contract of wasted dollars vs the skill set of a player.

1. Kessel (8M thru 2021-22
2. Phaneuf (7M thru 2021)
3. Clarkson (5.25M thru 2020)
4. Gardiner (4.05M thru 2019)
5. Lupul (5.25M thru 2018)
6. Robidas ( 3M thru 2017) Considering he's 38 he will be 41 at the end of that contract and you can already see he is long removed from his prime.

7. SIGN UFA's Holzer, Franson, Santorelli, Winnik,
or trade them before the deadline as They will all walk as this circus act known as Toronto Maple Leafs will prove not worth their troubles.

8. Get Bernier and Kadri Signed as RFA's

This needs to be done before the draft (Well at least up to #7) Its a start. CLEAN HOUSE. and hope that they may get some decent youth in return.
I still prefer to call it a Salary Dump. CLEAR up some much needed Cap space.

1.) 15 Jan 2015
15 Jan 2015 18:40:32
1. they aren't trading kessel, if they do the retrn has to be huge, he is what he is, and he's damn good at what he does.

2. phaneuf can go, but who is going to play in his spot? they'd need to get a replacement

3. literally no ons is taking clarkson

4. gardiner has been decent under harachek, small sample size, but the improvement has been noticeable. he's changed my position back to cautios optimism regarding what gardiner can be.

5. lupul will be traded, I agree on that but the return will be miniscule

6. tell me who would want robidas cause I can't think of anyone. liely buyout candidate.

2.) 16 Jan 2015
One thing I do not understand is the buyout, Can u explain please does every team get 2 buyouts every year?
How does the Buyout system work?

3.) 16 Jan 2015
You will Notice I suggested leafs trade for whatever they can get they are not in a position of strength,,,, Its to create afresh start as much as possible to rid the evil contacts put forth by Nonis and his buddy Burke

Also reading up on buy outs from what I can gather there will be no buyouts in 2014-2015 But I could be wrong

4.) 16 Jan 2015
16 Jan 2015 05:00:42
theres no more "free" buyouts, in the sense that they don't count towards the cap. any team can buyout as many players as they want, but after the last cba they all got 2 buyouts each that wouldn't count towards the cap. now if anyone were to buyout someone the hit towards the cap is 2//3rds of the salary over twice the remainin lenght of the contract. i'm not exactly sure on that, but I know i'm close, so if they were to buyout robidas after this year, the cap hit would be approximately 1.85 mil for the next 4 years, which is horrible buy you have to weight it againt the negative of him taking up a spot on the roster and an extra 1.2 mil in cap taken up.

5.) 16 Jan 2015
16 Jan 2015 05:02:40
and on your other point, trading phaneuf, kessel and gardiner for simply whaever you can get is not a good idea. I understand they aren't dealing from a position of strenght, but if a deal doenst make sense likely more harm is done just to make a deal for the sake of making one.