Chayka heads rise up! JC haters, grab your pitch forks and make way to your closest Wendy’s. We have ourselves a transacation!
A pragmatist could look at this and say big fucking deal. We’re really talking about swapping back-up goalie and third pairing d-men? And those people wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.
But this is Maple Leafs hockey baby. The take machine is working maximum overdrive and I may as well get some swings in.
Crunching Some Numbers
As somebody who has watched zero seconds Emil Andrae play hockey I have to say that I was a little gun-shy to come out firing with any crazy strong opinions. That’s when I fire up Twitter and check in on the calculator jockeys to see what the overall consensus is.
Cue the Stooges
As with any Leafs-related moves, nobody covers the news worse than the guys actually paid to cover hockey news.
Breaking Down the Discourse
With a glut of NHL calibre goalie talent–the HildeBeast is no longer waiver exempt and Akhtyamov is loudly banging on the door–I wish Woll was the one that we could’ve held onto. But clearly this is a telling sign of where Stolarz’s trade value is at. The goalie market in general is on a bit of a recession and–seeing as we’re two offseasons removed from Logan Thompson going for two 3rd rounders–one 3rd rounder alone wouldn’t be too terrible (underwhelming no doubt, but no terrible) for the glass-boned Woll.
In net Ersson is an obvious downgrade (I haven’t watched him too closely but Flyers Twitter and all the analytics would lead me to believe that he’s complete ass) but he is just a minor aspect of this deal. If the Leafs choose to talk turkey with the pending RFA it will no doubt be organizational depth as a back-up, back-up, back-up plan with NHL experience under his belt. If they don’t tender him then it’s an obvious play to clear up more cap space.
The most intriguing part of the deal is the Benoit-for-Andrae swap. As someone who watched far too much 25-26 Maple Leaf hockey, Simon Benoit’s archetype was emblematic of the team’s shortcomings. While not the biggest culprit (I never want to watch Phillipe Myers play another second for the Leafs), Benoit was just one of too many big, slow role players who chased play and treated pucks like a live grenades.
I’m optimistic with Chayka’s mandate to actually encourage playing with the puck with controlled exits. To me it’s much more preferable to the opposing Berube style of to dumping, chasing and hoping the puck finds the stick of Matthews and Nylander. Andrae stylistically fits the new Chayka-driven archetype having very good possession numbers in the offensive and defensive zones with strong zone exit and entries. He even hits and blocks enough shots that he can *hopefully* shake the label as a soft puck-mover. The rub is that he’s played heavily sheltered minutes early on in his career and he’s only 5’9″ so there is some huge boom-bust variance when the Leafs inevitably increase his workload.
Look, this trade ultimately may not be worth the time it takes to even type out this sentence let alone dedicating a whole blog to it. Woll could continue to soak up IR time and Andrae could wilt under increased responsibility and the trade could be a complete nothing burger. But it is significant to highlight that the first move for the new front office just reeks of Chayka-puck for better or for worse. I for one have been itching for this stylistic shift after two years of watching Pizza Boy and Chief turn the Leafs into a team all-too-fine with getting lit up in their own end so long their goalies kept them in the game.
The trade as a whole is fascinating as it is a true canary-in-the-coalmine for what’s to come. It’s the first domino to fall in this summer’s goalie market and the first move of the Chayka-Sundin era. It’ll be easier to judge once we see how the goalie market shakes out and once we see Toronto’s corresponding moves. In the meantime you can clearly see the direction Toronto is moving in and–while I do understand and ultimately like the move–you don’t have to squint too hard to see where it can go wrong.
The Cheap Seats 
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