Kaberle Finally Heads to Boston

			2011 Season				2011	Remaining
To Boston	Position	Age	GP	G	A	P	Cap Hit	Years	Cap Hit
Tomas Kaberle	Defense	33	58	3	35	38	$4.25 million	0	UFA
--------------------------
To Toronto	Position	Age	GP	G	A	P	Cap Hit	Years	Cap Hit
Joe Colborne	Forward	21	0	0	0	0	$1.1 million	2	Same
2011 1st Round Draft Pick
Conditional Draft Pick

And here we have it. The deal that took absolutely ages to happen, finally happened. The Leafs have indeed dealt Tomas Kaberle to the Bruins for a prospect, a top pick and another good pick on the condition that the Bruins either go to the Cup Finals or Kaberle re-signs with the club.  In essence, this is the Leafs selling their UFA asset for a number of futures and this will highlight the trading season, for sure.

In Kaberle, the Bruins will receive a proven pedigree for puck moving and distribution for all situations, including the power play.  The Bruins do have some great talent on the back end, but no one there has the touch that Kaberle does possess and will now bring to the table for a playoff push in the Eastern Conference.

In terms of scoring, Kaberle was a very good assists man in Toronto, a team that ranks 12th in the Eastern Conference in goals for, moving to the Eastern team that ranks 2nd.  If Kaberle is able to distribute the puck for a better scoring team, I would assume (quite obviously) that his scoring rate should likely improve.

In return, the Maple Leafs acquire a former 1st round pick in Joe Colborne, a very good prospect who has been working in the Bruins system, the Bruins' 1st round pick this Summer (not re-acquiring their own pick from the Phil Kessel deal) and the conditional pick, assuming the conditions are met, will be a 2nd round pick in the 2012 draft.  There are a few 'what ifs' in this side of the deal, but that's the gamble that Burke is willing to take and he could very well get a good return on this, especially in terms of the rebuilding mode that the team is in.

Well, thanks to the deal with Atlanta, okay shortly before this deal got the rubber stamp of approval, the Bruins made enough space to fit Kaberle in to the system and they will try to have him in the line-up as soon as possible.  The Maple Leafs only acquired futures in this deal, so they have then dumped the remainder of Kaberle's salary and not taken any active cap hit on in return.

In the draft, this is the third player of Dale C.'s to get moved on Friday, but all Dale has to worry about is the third segment for the jersey prize, where he sits 17 points behind 1st place, but Kaberle moving to a high-powered team might give him a pretty good lift for the stretch run.  I won't say that all of these deals will make it much better, but there is a slight chance that it will.