It’s been a long old hockey season for those that like their trades … Until today. I was sitting watching TV this morning when someone pointed out to me the names of some Leafs players on the news ticker and that it looked like there had been a trade. I turned on the net and was indeed informed of the blockbuster deal that had taken place between Toronto and Calgary and later Toronto and Anaheim.

The trades:

Toronto acquire defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie along with forward Fredrik Sjostrom from the Calgary Flames in return for forwards Jason Blake, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and defenseman Ian White.

Toronto acquire goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere from Anaheim Ducks in return for goalie Vesa Toskala and forward Jason Blake.

Thoughts:

Well the Toronto media have proclaimed their city the winner of this deal before a shot is fired in anger by any of these players at their new teams simply because Phaneuf is the biggest name in the deal. They have a point to a degree, the Leafs gave up some players on big salaries who were not producing as much as they might have liked and with the team sitting at the bottom end of the standings and losing on a nightly basis, it makes sense to make changes going forward. Losing a bunch of forwards frees up space for the Leafs to give young players a shot to prove their worth for the rest of the season and getting back a young star like Phaneuf never hurts.

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It was almost like they wanted to achieve the goal of moving back into their comfort zone — last place — against the Carolina Hurricanes — the team in last place going into tonight’s match-up. The Leafs blew a 3-0 lead in the first period to see a 4-4 game into the final minutes of play. But an Ian White goal with 30-seconds to go seemed to save their bacon only for the Leafs, in only a way the 2009/10 Leafs can, conceded a goal with 2.7 seconds on the clock to take it to overtime. Not content with actually winning a game in regulation the Leafs decided to give their opponent at least a point. Well as it turned out it was the Leafs that took just one point, again, when Carolina won the shootout. The result moves the Leafs back into last place in the 30 team NHL standings and attention now turns to the management.

Before the game GM Brian Burke threw out threats for the 812th time that players would be demoted or traded if they didn’t step up. Well after tonight’s shambles in blowing the 3-0 lead against the former worst team in the NHL, it’ll be interesting to see if Burke follows through on the threats finally.

When I turned the game on to see them 3-0 up I went onto Twitter and wrote something to the effect of the Leafs would win the Stanley Cup if the only team they had to play was Carolina, but as it turns out I was to quick with such a comment and it seems under such circumstances of a two-team league with Carolina, the Leafs would indeed still come up short.