Tomas Kaberle Stays With The Toronto Maple Leafs: What Now?

For those of you that sat by your computer all day in hopes of being one of the first to catch a glimpse of the Tomas Kaberle trade, I know your pain. It’s 12:01, and Kaberle is still a Maple Leaf!

Rumored to be headed to numerous NHL teams for weeks, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke was unable to find a suitable return for what Burke deemed to be a tremendous asset in Kaberle.

Here is a copy of Brian Burke's official press release:

"The hockey club confirms this evening that Tomas Kaberle remains a Leaf. While a number of Clubs made offers to trade for Tomas, none of them reflected Tomas's value to our team. I understand a period like this is stressful to the player, and we are pleased that there is a resolution, and we can all continue to prepare for the coming season".

Originally, Burke came out early Sunday and suggested that if the deals that were already on the table for Kaberle were the best that rival NHL Gm’s could do that Kaberle would remain in Blue and White for another season.

Burke even suggested that the Leafs were willing to look at a "futures deal", but none passed his desk that were to his liking.

With Kaberle now in the Leafs lineup for the 2010-11 season, Burke now has a total of eight defensemen under contract, leading me to believe that Burke will now set his sights on trading one of Francois Beauchemin or Luke Schenn if he wants to add that coveted top-six scoring forward we have all been talking about for months now.

While there is the hope of Burke getting a deal done for another scorer, the Kaberle situation seems to have spun Burke's best laid plans in a undesirable direction.

How can Burke look Kaberle in the face after trying so diligently to trade the talented Czech?

Better yet, how can Kaberle go about his business next season knowing that he may have to go through additional trade rumors and speculation at next years trade deadline?

Clearly, this is the worst case scenario for Burke, regardless of the fact that he has stated on countless occasions that he would be fine with keeping Kaberle.

A contract extension with Kaberle seems very unlikely at this point, leaving many Leaf fans worried that Kaberle will exit the same way Mats Sundin did—with nothing coming back to the Maple Leafs.

The grim reality is the Free Agents remaining hardly address what Burke needs in order for the Leafs to be recognized a serious playoff contender—although there seems to be plenty of support for Burke adding Raffi Torres (who scored 19 goals last season) to the mix.

The Leafs finished the 2009-10 with one of the worst power plays in recent memory and an equally poor showing on the penalty kill. While there is optimism that the Leafs will improve in both special teams areas, there is still a deep fear that the Leafs will not be able to generate enough offense in order to earn the minimum of 90 points it will likely take to qualify for the 2010-11 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

While it is unclear exactly what Burke will do going forward, one can assume that youngsters like Jerry D’amigo and Nazem Kadri just saw their chances of making this squad go way up.

While not preferable, a youth movement at forward may not be the worst thing to happen to the Leafs as it will give Burke a great opportunity to see what he has with an eye on making a huge splash via free agency in 2011.

With players like Bobby Ryan, James Neal, Ryan Malone, Ryane Clowe and others being rumored to be headed to the Leafs in exchange for Kaberle the Leafs Nation is bitterly disappointed nothing happened on Sunday.

I would love to go over all the rumors we heard and read about, but at this point it’s all redundant.

Let’s face it, most of these rumors were pure fodder from start to finish. But with Leafs fans desperate to acquire another legitimate top-six forward and with many Leaf fans pointing to the Dion Phaneuf acquisition as proof that “anything is possible”, the rumors caught fire quickly, with no turning back.

It’s not often that Burke is kept off the scoresheet, but he looks to have failed miserably when it comes to trading Kaberle—or was it just a poor market?

Many NHL insiders have pointed to the fact that Ilya Kovalchuk was still on the market as being a huge detriment to Burke’s effort to trade Kaberle. The Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils (two teams thought to still be looking at adding Kovalchuk) were long rumored to be interested in Kaberle and were thought to be two teams that would help raise the bar in any Kaberle trade scenarios.

In the end, both the Kings and Devils took a pass on Kaberle in favor of other options.

Also hurting Burke was the fact that there seems to be a lot of interest in Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieska and free agent defenseman Willie Mitchell.

For now, the Tomas Kaberle saga seems to have ended—that is unless Kaberle wants to give the Leafs his permission to seek a trading partner...but we don't want to go there right now, right?

The Kaberle Saga has ended...and for that, I think we are all very thankful.

Until next time,

Peace!