Early in the season Burke made a trade that many Leafs fans were excited about but that created much discontent. Phil Kessel for a first and second round draft pick in 2010 and a first round draft pick in 2011.

Many people felt it was too much to sacrifice, but I disagreed. The Leafs have an extremely youthful team, Wilson says “the youngest team in the league”. The average age is 26.5 years old (as of today’s trade) compared to the league average of approximately 28 years of age. In other words, the Leafs are not disparate for youth.

Additionally the point of a team picking up an early draft pick is the chance that a perspective player will become a star. The Leafs have traded the chance to obtain a star for an actual goal-scoring stud.

Sounds great to me.

Today Burke made some welcomed announcements. Two big trades that resulted in the movement of ten players with Calgary and Anaheim.

The Leafs have lost four of their offensemen in exchange for a stronger back end. While I am not sure what Burke’s plans are to fill in the forward lines after this trade (perhaps make room for Bozak, Hanson, or Kadri) I’m impressed with the defensive mix up.

It has been said that Burke led the Ducks to a Stanley Cup victory by building from the netminder out. In Anaheim he built a team with Giguere, Beauchemin, Niedermayer and Pronger.

Now he is doing much the same thing in Toronto. Giguere is a Stanley Cup championship goaltender who, if he cannot offer wins, he can offer mentorship to Jonas Gustavsson. Despite Gustavsson’s losing record he has exhibited incredible potential.

Giguere has not been doing well in Anaheim, but he did not want to play there and even threatened retirement unless he was given more action. He will certainly get that in Toronto.

In terms of the blueline, the Leafs now have Karbele, Phaneuf, Komisarek, and Beauchemin as well as World Junior champion Keith Aulie. With any luck it will be more challenging for opponents to put the puck in their net.

In terms of their offense, the Leafs never really had talented goal-scorers anyways. What they had was Ron Wilson’s shoot-and-get-as-many-rebounds-as-you-can dirty style of scoring, which is brilliant when you don’t have the talent to put it in the net.

To top it off, the Leafs can now make a push for the playoffs. While getting a slot may be near impossible, they have nothing to lose in terms of draft picks as their first and second pick for next season goes to Boston.

I am sure that Burke is now formulating a plan to get stronger skaters to meet Kessel at the front lines, but until then we will have to see how this current mix-up will affect the Leafs ability to win games.

Interest, Rants Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Dion Phaneuf, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Toronto Maple Leafs