Yes, as much as you are probably cursing at the mere title of this entry, bear with me for a moment.

Before we start, I do not like Jason Blake. At all. He’s not a player I want on this team, and I have never wanted him at any point, ever. Even last year when he was on his hot streak, he was merely tolerable at best to me. If you’re looking for someone to back the man up, you’re not getting it here. Go find a girl who is either really short, has had or has family members or close friends that have/had cancer, or was the one who didn’t like the stereotypical “pretty boy” in high school (HINT: Thats where you find your Stajan apologist concentration).

However, the increasingly frequent suggestion that the Leafs put the infinitely struggling forward on waivers is absolutely preposterous, not for Jason’s sake, but for managements.

There are several aspects that must be looked at here.

Message Sending: One would assume that by putting a high priced player on waivers, that you’re sending a message to the rest of the team that they better perform, or they’ll realize the same fate. The issue is, this really only works on veteran players who are scared that they’ll retire in the American Hockey League. Guess who the Leafs have that are in that age area: uhh, uhm….

Jason Blake. Seriously, thats like telling someone you’re going to kill them so they’ll see it and wise up in the future.

The younger players, knowing that they’ll have time left, can just dominate the minors until either their contract expires, until a team trades for them, or until the Leafs think they’ve changed, risk re-entry waivers, and have either gone back to where it started, or are now playing for a new team. Either way, it’s just a stop gap in their illustrious career. Taking a cigarette break, not dying due to the cigarettes.

Re-Entry Waivers: Say Blake were to dominate the minors and attract some attention back from the Leafs. Thats fine, but they’d have to bring him in on re-entry waivers. What’s the issue with this?

If a team claims him, the Leafs have to pay half his salary, AND have that count against the cap. Example of this? Sean Avery’s cap hit in Dallas. And at $2,000,000 a year, a team will pick him up for sure. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to show improvement – he’s worth at least $2,000,000 to a team now.

The issue with Blake’s contract isn’t so much the $4,000,000, than the fact that this is year three of five. Now given, he is overpaid still, but its not a drastic fleecing of the universe as its made out to be. But swallowing that for three years, into his late 30′s where he could get even worse? Yikes…

$2,000,000 for Blake gets 29 waiver claims. And…

Reputation: It would look downright terrible on managements part. Minus the embarassment of having another $2,000,000 in dead space to match Darcy Tucker on our salary cap chart, we’d also have a huge problem if we did the alternative, being keeping him down there for all three years. No player will want to sign here long term, leaving us stuck with short term players, who are nowhere near as talented (long term is currently “in” with elite level players, signing for 7-12 years). You’ll be getting older players, very…Jason Blake like, but that’s about it. And if you want to avoid that reputation, the $2,000,000 makes it hard to sign the player for the fact that you HAVE NO MONEY.

Youth Destruction: So say we keep in there for two and half years, and bite the bullet on reputation. After all, we still got our prospects, right? Oh, that’s where it gets funny.

Jason Blake has for a long time been rumored to been a very bad locker room personality, with reports of this coming from as late as a few weeks ago. Now, lets stuff him in a minor hockey league for the rest of his career, playing on a diminshed role as to not stunt prospect development, prospects that will go on the team that embarassed him…

Yeah, I don’t want to see that either.

In the end, Jason Blake is not worth the contract that he has. He’s not deserving of being on this team. He’s not someone I want to keep, and I would be very happy to not see play again. On that note, the risks to putting him on waivers are terrible, whether he stays with the Marlies or gets recalled eventually (he could theoretically be claimed, but it won’t happen). The best thing to do right now is try to keep him somewhat happy, and hope he puts up enough points to garner interest by the trade deadline. Even it its Blake and a 4th for Futures, or something like that, the ends will definitely justify the means, if his departure is the way we must go.

Until Next Time,

Jeff