Blackhawks' Saviour?

Looks like Burke has a dance partner in Chi-town.

Pinned to the mat, the only leg on the rope Burke has is cap space. But he should skip on Sopel and poach a younger player. Cam Barker would be a coup. Patrick Sharp would be nice. Getting a pick would be icing on the cake. Who should leave town? No one under the age of 27.

Sopel is a powerplay guy with a shot. He has been exposed as a poor even strength player throughout his career. The Leafs have no need for a player in that mold, let alone a player with as many miles as Sopel. Unless there's a first rounder in it.

Tool Time

The Hockey News has a salary cap tracker up. I have no idea as to the degree of accuracy it represents. But I like that the Leafs are at ~ $43,473,000, according to a quick excel summation. nhlnumbers.com paints an even better picture, with the *drumroll* Leafs 06/07 salary at ~ $44,671,000 and the total 06/07 cap hit at ~$42,874,000.

At least it is a brighter picture than a recent Mirtle report of the Leafs being over the cap according to Irish Blues.

I'm going to try and dig into the details of the three versions of the Leafs salary situation and see what I come up with. Or perhaps an update by the team would help clarify the situation and save me alot of grunt work.

BONUS - Check out screenshots of what seems like every Leafs' fight of the season here, if you like that kind of thing. And yes the Newbury head crash is there.