Alright, so it’s old news, and I’m talking about it way later. Kris Versteeg and Bill Sweatt were traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs from the Chicago Blackhawks for Viktor Stalberg, Christopher DiDomenico, and Phillippe Paradis, and the Leafs would go into July 1^st, signing former Atlanta Thrashers goal scorer… Colby Armstrong! Not the Ilya Kovalchuk everyone was expecting (though, theoretically, if he wants to take a massive discount, he could still sign here in the coming days).

Now, I want to cover both moves now, a few days late, because it’s given people time to avoid the kneejerk reactions, and listen critically. I’ll break it up a bit.

The Versteeg Trade

Viktor Stalberg: I have no doubt that Viktor Stalberg will be an NHL regular, and it wouldn’t even shock me if he’s a somewhat frequent 20 goal scorer. But, those who are worried that we gave up the next great Swedish sensation – this probably isn’t the case. Go back and watch a few games.

What you’ll see, if you’re not still clinging to your destroyed hopes of the Frat Pack playing together in the regular season, is a player who has absolute blinding speed. He has more than decent size. But two key issues.

For one, Stalberg uses none of his size. Surprisingly, for someone as big as he is, you’ll never see him go into a corner, throw a hit, or anything of the like, which hampers ability to play 2 way hockey. Secondly, and the worst part of the hopes that he would/will one day become a sniper, is the fact that the guy quite simply has no shot.  To make matters worse, he has total hands of stone, which is a shame.  A comparable if he doesn’t manage to get himself improved? Rico Fata, 6^th overall pick in 1998. One of the fastest skaters you’ll ever see, but didn’t At 23 years old, Fata had 5 goals and 8 assists in 27 games, followed by a 16 goal, 18 assist season in 73 games a year later at 24.

I’m not saying that he’s bound to be the next Rico Fata – one of the biggest busts you’ll ever imagine, but their play styles are similar and had the same issues (except that Fata was 4 inches shorter). It’s a possibility, particularly since you don’t make massive strides to turn into a star player at this age, typically. Reasonably, he could be a very good 3^rd liner, or a decent second liner. But the Leafs aren’t giving up the next Marian Gaborik, here.

Chris DiDomenico: This guy, on the other hand, I have zero optimism for. I would get tons of disagreements while he was a Leaf, but let’s face facts – he’s another case of World Juniors Syndrome. What WJS is, is if any Leaf plays for the Team Canada, no matter what he does, he becomes the second coming. It’s the reason why Leafs fans, and even the brass, preferred Justin Pogge to Tuukka Rask, it’s the same reason Jay Harrison was considered a solid prospect.

The fact is, DiDomenico has been projected ever since he was picked to have third line potential, and nothing more. If all the stars aligned, he might play on a 2^nd line on a weak team. But even with this being well known, you’d hear lines like “very poor man’s Doug Gilmour”, “will be a very good NHL player” and such from Leafs Nation starting the second he put on that uniform. But he’s done nothing to back it up. He’s a fine QMJHL player, but even then, he didn’t make steady improvements as a player until the end of this year, when he returned from a femur injury (which are extremely hard to return from and are usually hampering to a career). He had a wicked 12 games to wrap up the year, and then followed that up with disappointing in the playoffs; with about 60% of the scoring pace he had the previous year’s playoffs. Granted, it’s kind of understandable why, but at the same time, he’s an overager in the QMJHL – the fact you aren’t ripping the league apart is an issue. Much like the fact he played 63 regular season games in his last 3 seasons.

He’ll probably be an okay player with the Rockford IceHogs. But honestly, it would not shock me if he never plays more than a few games in the NHL.

Phillippe Paradis: By far the question mark of this trade. We’re talking about a player that Leafs fans themselves were still getting used to, having being acquired this year for Jiri Tlusty, and only playing a handful of games in our system with the Toronto Marlies. His numbers in the QMJHL are questionable, but he isn’t a dominator in terms of ice time, and plays as a power forward, so the reasoning for it could be questioned. That said, it’s kind of hard to not produce in the Q – he finished 5^th on his Shawinigan Cataractes in points.

Power forwards are rawer though, so it wouldn’t be of a major shock if he can eventually develop into a rather good NHL player in a few years time. For now, he’s a question mark.

Billy Sweatt: The prospect the Leafs get back in the deal appears to be one that’s decent, leading Colorado College in points this year, and expected to make the jump to the Marlies in the upcoming year. That said, I don’t know enough about him to judge. Hockeysfuture says that like the aforementioned Viktor Stalberg, Sweatt has mind-numbing speed. They even say he could be a top 6 forward. But I’ll reserve judgement for now, as I’ll no doubt be seeing a lot of him at Ricoh. Definitely good to get a prospect back, though.

Kris Versteeg: The main piece of this deal, so I saved him for last. Versteeg, as we all know, was a decent but not integral part of the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup run, and a 2009 Calder Trophy Finalist. Unfortunately for him, Dale Tallon’s Hawks roster plan was centred on this:

And people had to go, including himself, Dustin Byfuglien, and Andrew Ladd. This doesn’t mean the team wasn’t a fan of their play – it just meant that with Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet’s salary plaguing their roster and not piquing anybody’s interest, they had to trade players with actual value.

If you haven’t seen Versteeg, go watch the video’s in Raskofalltrades’s orgasm blog and other blog about the deal. He’s a wicked player, and his career was being held back in Chicago. His first year came with top 6 minutes, and got him 52 points. The next year, a guy named Marian that really wanted a cup showed up, and ensured the ‘Steeg would have his points dip slightly. In Toronto, where the philosophy is “if you can grip your stick for more than 12 seconds without dropping your gloves, you’re on line 1”, he’ll have plenty of time to thrive.

Versteeg has the ability to try to make the big play, which would normally be an issue, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is a quality that nobody other than Phil Kessel (who can do it) and John Mitchell (in Johnny Malkin mode, and he still can’t) holds. He’s got speed, he’s not afraid to be gritty. His only slight is his size, and whether his production can bounce back. Personally, with him being the teams 2^nd best forward, I would certainly expect it to.

Plus, dude thinks he can rap and is a fun interview. One has love the fact that the team seems to be trying to make a locker room straight of a sitcom, with a bunch of random personalities that aren’t as bland as can be.

Who would I declare the winner of this trade? Both sides, for now. Versteeg will likely be the better player of the bunch, but the Hawks got a lot of question marks that could pan out if all goes well. What’s more important though is that the Hawks save about 2M towards next year’s salary cap, without trading a Toews, Kane, Hossa, Niemi, Keith, Seabrook, type player. Versteeg is fine and all, but when you’re that stacked, you look after the top dogs. Both teams’ fans should be quite happy with this move, when all is said and done.

Fun fact, by the way, that’s forgotten by many. Versteeg is actually younger than Stalberg – though both were late bloomers, and Versteeg started first in the NHL first, he’s about 4 months younger than Viktor, so anyone claiming we traded the future away should step back for a minute and think.

Secondly, we have the Armstrong signing, which should be of way less talk.

Colby Armstrong is a guy that every franchise that’s ever touched him, from before his NHL time to today, has had him as a fan favourite. He’s a pest, he produces decent numbers, and he’s not afraid to hit. You’ll hate him when he faces you; love him when he’s pissing off your opponents.

The dig on him though, is that he had an off offensive year, scoring only 29 points, good for 8^th on the team in scoring (Leafs salary dump defenceman Pavel Kubina was even ahead of him!). And it’s a logical argument – though we’re not bringing him in to be a sniper, he is making 3 million dollars a year. One expects he produces well enough to justify it.

Personally, I love the move from a hockey perspective, and from a fan perspective. He brings a grittiness, attitude, and personality to the team that you got to love, even if he’s not producing points. Conversely though, with the way the NHL is structured, you also have to look at it from a cap perspective, in which case it’s a rather questionable move. Armstrong clearly wasn’t brought here to be a top 6 forward, so why pay 3 million for a 3^rd liner when you’re in desperate need of scoring?

In the end, it’s a move where I say “Why?” when questioning its existence, but won’t care about it watching him on the ice. Not giving Burke the A+ by any means no it, but hey, it’s a lot better than Lydman and Tallinder getting the annual “oh, he played on the Sabres last year and was alright, sign him to an inflated contract” treatment, and the fact the Flames brought back Olli Jokinen. If this is Burke’s worst free agent move, he’s doing a damn good job.

To sum it up, I like both moves so far, for various reasons. Granted, nobody’s played a second of hockey for their new teams yet, and we likely won’t be able to look back on either transaction for several  years, age considered (the Armstrong one about 2 years, and Versteeg at least 3). Only time will tell, but they’ve got me excited for this team. At least, more excited than I was a week or two ago.