Toronto Maple Leafs Rumors: Kaberle To The Devils In a Swamp Monster Of a Deal

According to Eklund, a very sketchy rumor pusher, the Leafs appear to be discussing a deal with the Devils to acquire veterans Jamie Langenbrunner, Brian Rolston, and two draft picks.

"The trade would involve Tomas Kaberle and a fourth-rounder ending up in NJ, 
With Rolston, Langenbrunner, a first in 2011, and a second in 2012 heading to Toronto."

"Bryce Salvador could then be shipped to the Ducks or Sharks for a draft pick."

Now, I understand many of you are Eklund haters, and I understand fully, but I found this rumor to be intriguing. The Devils are a team in need of salary cap relief and need to shed at least $5-6 million to properly get under the cap.

With these moves, the Devils would be bringing in Kaberle at $4.25 million for this season, and unload Langenbrunner ($2.8 million), Rolston ($5.06 million), and Salvador ($2.9), which means they've unloaded around $10.76 million and taken back $4.25 million, a savings of over $6 million.

The Devils would do this to shed the veteran salary without giving up parts of their future (Parise, Zajac, Tedenby, Greene, etc.) and they get back a top-two defenceman in Kaberle. Kaberle instantly becomes their best defenceman offensively, and would make for a very dynamic top four, which includes the likes of Anton Volchenkov, Andy Greene, and the recently signed Henrik Tallinder.

Colin White and Anssi Salmela would make up the remainder of their defensive core.

The one thing holding the deal back would be the no-trade clauses that both Langenbrunner and Rolston each have in their contracts.

The Leafs do the deal to get the draft picks, but also to get legit top-six talent up front, albeit, they're aging veterans.

Their forwards then become:

Versteeg/Bozak/Kessel

MacArthur/Kadri/Langenbrunner

Rolston/Grabovski/Kulemin

Sjostrom/Brown/Armstrong

Xtra: Caputi, Mitchell, Orr, Hanson

It makes for a very muddled forward group, but a forward group that is flexible.

The last time I posted a Eklund rumor, I nearly got crucified, so hopefully this goes over better. It does have a lot more merit than the Leafs getting James vanRiemsdyk.