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Toronto Maple Leafs Must Trade Dion Phaneuf and Phil Kessel Now

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Dion Phaneuf and Phil Kessel

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There was a lot of interest and intrigue late last week in the NHL Entry Draft. In Toronto, there’s a lot of interest as to what the roster may look like next fall for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fans were hoping that the full rebuild could have started last week with the trading of their veteran assets for prospects and draft picks. The team did draft OHL’s London Knights’ Mitchell Marner fourth overall. They also acquired some draft picks that will need time to develop.

However, the team’s two biggest stars are right winger Phil Kessel and defenseman, captain Dion Phaneuf. They are still in Toronto and that’s a big mistake. Both players could have been dealt, but of course, a lot can happen between late June and September when training camp begins again. Team President and alternate governor Brendan Shanahan has been preaching patience. He insists that the team will be focusing on youngsters.

Kessel and Phaneuf have to move elsewhere in order to begin this full rebuild. It is almost a foregone conclusion that the team is not going to win the Stanley Cup this fall. Trading the duo during the Draft would have shown that they are fully committed to a long process of doing this properly.

Free agency begins on July 1. While NHL teams spend their top dollar on prized free agents, the landscape in Toronto could have changed completely by that point if they had traded Kessel and Phaneuf. Heading into July 1, nobody knows what might have been on the table in offers for Kessel or Phaneuf. However, let’s assume the Leafs had offers consisting of players with hefty contracts and offered some sort of package of prospects and picks.

The players would have been off the books. The team may have had their newly drafted players already. Fans would know that the team is finally serious about building this floundering franchise back up to respectability.

Keeping them on this team past July 1 sends mixed signals. It will fool some fans into thinking that this is a playoff team where, if they can just get into the playoffs, ‘anything can happen.’ On the other hand, trading Kessel and Phaneuf, and any other veteran acquired from the Brian Burke and Dave Nonis era will strip anything associated with the team that fell apart with three-goal lead in Game 7 against the Boston Bruins during the 2013-14 NHL playoffs.

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