The Toronto Maple Leafs got some good news on Saturday in the form of a trade made by the Canadiens and the Coyotes.
The Toronto Maple Leafs may not have been involved in the proceedings, but you can bet they noticed how much the Canadiens paid to get Christian Dvorak from the Coyotes.
The reason they’d care?
They’ve got a player very similar to Christian Dvorak who they may or may not want to trade.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Alex Kerfoot
The Leafs have Alex Kerfoot and he makes $3.5 million dollars for two more years. Dvorak makes $4.5 for another four seasons. Edge goes to Kerfoot.
Kerfoot is a year and a half older – Edge goes to Dvorak.
Alex Kerfoot has consistently scored at a higher rate than Dvorak, and he’s put up way better on-ice results (though on a much better team). Kerfoot also has one year (his last in Colorado) where he put up some of the best defensive results in the game. Edge goes to Kerfoot.
Dvorak is younger, has a higher ceiling, and his results have suffered because he plays on a bad team and doesn’t have good teammates. Kerfoot gets kind of a bad rap for not being Nazem Kadri. He scores, defends, and is very versatile.
The reason the Leafs may want to move him is because they have a glut of forwards (Kase, Bunting, Ritchie, Ho-Sang, Kampf, Engvall, Richardson, Brooks, Mikheyev) who will be competing for jobs, and the cap space that Kerfoot takes up might be better spent at the trade deadline.
Kerfoot represents a significant amount of cap-flexibility for the Leafs, and given what the Canadiens just paid for Dvorak, you have to think there is a market for a similar player who is cheaper and signed for a shorter period of time.
I am not writing that Kerfoot is better than Dvorak, I don’t think he is. I think Dvorak is a better player, but barely. He just got traded for a first and a second, a package that has to make every team with a similar player consider making a trade.
Anything approaching that package would be an excellent trade for the Toronto Maple Leafs for a player they likely have to trade anyways. I like Kerfoot. I think he can be a very valuable player, but I also think his cap-hit could probably be better utilized.
When the Toronto Maple Leafs saw what kind of value Christian Dvorak had in the trade market, I’m guessing they started salivating at the thought of moving Kerfoot for a similar package.