for the third tier spots on D, i think guys like Kronvall, Bell and to a lesser extent Woz and Harrison are ready for those spots now. so you have an overpaid top-3 at 15 million and a near-league-minimum (about 1.5-2.5 million), younger bottom-3 on D. the top 3 are entering their prime the bottom 3 are learning their craft and the D should cost about 17-18 million. that sounds good to me.

do i think Mitchell or McKee would make a better and cheaper fit than Kubina – no question. but what is done is done. I think the leafs are stuck with Gill for awhile and that has to be accepted. all i can hope for is that he keeps Belak out of the D-corps, remains on the 3rd tier and is paired up with someone who is speedier which was all being done before the injuries. is that worth 2.1 million of cap space or half of that? no.

my main focus for this year is the kids – the Williams, Suglobovs, Steens, Stajans, Coliacovos, Whites, etc. the other focus is keeping an eye on who should be elminated from the leafs roster via trade or just letting them go and right now that list includes Gill, Telly or Aubin, Antropov (simply as a tradeable asset), Belak and maybe O’Neill. Combined – that’s nearly 6 million of cap space that can be shipped out. finally, the third focus for me this year is the possibility of a wholesale change by this year’s trade deadline (trading Sundin, Tucker, Kubina, Peca, etc.), which i dont think is necessary but you never know by the deadline.

for the price and skill, Dempsey is way better than Gill. So is Kronvall and a lot of the leaf kids. the only difference is that they need some seasoning in the NHL whereas Gill already has that. but just like Berg, Khavanov and others, they have worn out their welcome for me. Give the kids a chance and keep the cap space open. especially in the cap era, its no longer the case of blindly cheering for kids getting called up because they are underdogs ….. they are also CHEAP underdogs and effective ones at that. the fact that you can admit to the 2.1 million but then qualify that with ‘but you have to for free agents’ does NOT make the signing any more reasonable. Even Kubina i can grudgingly admit that 5 million is too much but somewhat necessary. But Gill – no way!