Well this was an interesting trade from the Leafs point of view. MJK is certainly right, when it comes to goalies it's very tough to tell how they will perform. But the Leafs are still more comfortable with Turco than they were with Fernandez for a few reasons....
- This will be Fernandez's first NHL season as the true #1 for his team. How will he handle it? Will it wear on him mentally and/or physically? In Turco's case, he's done it before and we expect him to continue his stellar NHL play.
- ST may be important, who knows. The Leafs looked at last season, when Turco posted a .903 save % with the Senators. That's a pretty good % for the CPHL and he did it with an even worse ST rating than he has now. With a similar team in front of him this year, the Leafs hope for similar numbers.
- It has been passed over by Eklunde, but rumours in Toronto suggest the Leafs are considering spending some of the extra cap space they have this season on resigning next summer's UFA's. Rumour has it Fernandez didn't want to extend his deal at this time, so the Leafs will hope for some better luck with Turco.
- Overall, these goalies are very close. It seems that if you have a solid team, any 80OV goalie will put up solid numbers. Both of these guys will do well with their new teams.
To make this swap the Leafs gave up Jim Vandermeer. He's a guy we really like... so much that we got him back from New York at last year's deadline after trading him there earlier in the season. But, the Leafs defense has changed since then. Vandermeer wasn't going to get much playing time this season, so we wish him the best of luck in Florida (or whichever team MJK trades him to later this week)
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