Leino Dealt to Flyers
February 6th, 2010 | by Chris Hollis |
“Fans are SO MUCH NICER in Philly…”
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Not even 24 hours after I posted what I believed to be reasonable and probable moves for the Red Wings over the next week, Ken Holland waves his magic wand and POOF! Ville Leino is a Flyer.
Detroit trades Ville Leino to Philadelphia for a 5th in 2011 and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen.
Leino obviously won’t be getting waived on Monday anymore…
At any rate, I’m very surprised to see Leino actually get moved to another team, given his performance this year and the fact that he could have hit the waiver wire in about 48 hours. That said, Ken Holland is an absolute master at pulling off deals like this, so I tip my hat to him once again.
As for Tollefsen: I don’t know a whole lot. I know he plays defense. I know he’s been fighting injuries most of the season. I know that he has a crazy name. I also know that he shouldn’t expect to see the Winged Wheel on his chest anytime soon as he’s a mortal lock to be waived. (UPDATE 1:57 PM: Confirmed. Tollefsen to the waiver wire.) He makes $600K, which only frees up around $200K when you take away Leino’s $800K hit, which is nowhere near the $700K in cap relief the Wings need to bring back Johan Franzen on Tuesday. I’m sure this is a “If he clears waivers, great. If not, Oh well,” type situation for Holland, just hoping that he might get some sort of return for shipping Leino. (With the way the season is gone, though, I fully expect the Blackhawks to claim Tollefsen and then we all have to suffer the horror of watching him score the game-winning goal to knock us out of the playoffs. That would certainly be fitting.)
In return, the Flyers are getting an underachieving young forward who has the potential to be a great player in the league someday. He also has a penchant for talking about how hard he works to get better, despite spending over 90% of his time on his face in the corners when battling for pucks. That said, Leino has tremendous potential and could turn out to be a terrific pickup for the Flyers.
I have to admit that part of me is sad to see Ville go. I had high hopes for the kid and believed a long career was in the making in Motown. I would have much preferred to see Jason Williams and his $1.5 million contract get moved instead, but that long-shot has now been all but erased.
So what happens next? I’m sure the Wings will continue to follow the script and Brad May will hit the waiver wire sooner than later, as Andreas Lilja continues his path back to the Wings lineup. Brett Lebda or Derek Meech will likely find new homes next week too.
The first domino has fallen. Let’s see how it all ends up.
Tags: Andreas Lilja, Brad May, Brett Lebda, Derek Meech, Jason Williams, Johan Franzen, Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, Ville Leino
