From Allan Ryder of the Globe & Mail:
The bottom line here is that the best that be reasonably expected from Van Ryn is the worst that could have been expected from McCabe. I can’t comment on the locker room or the player management issues but, on the ice, holding on to McCabe had considerable upside.
Of course the unknown in this analysis is the future. As is the case with any player signed to a long term contract, a team takes on considerable risk of a downward performance trend and there could be one under way with McCabe. Van Ryn is younger and therefore less exposed to that risk.
So this would seem to be a salary dump where the benefit is the opportunity to redeploy spending to get better value. Here is the data. McCabe has three seasons left at a salary of $4.15-million per season but an annual salary cap hit of $5.75-million due to the front ending of his contract. Mike Van Ryn has two seasons left on a contract scheduled to pay $3.15-million per annum but a cap hit of $2.9-million because of the back ending of his deal.
Read the entire article here.
Good article. As Ryder says, it really depends on what the Leafs do with the money they have opened up with this trade.
