Kris Versteeg's selfish penalties made his price too high

With the Toronto Star screaming a "Versteeg trade solves nothing" headline across the top of the Sports section, I have to ask Damien Cox if he's been watching many Toronto Maple Leafs games this year. Kris Versteeg was paid big bucks and brought over from the Stanley Cup champions to provide leadership and show a young Leafs team how to win with pride and discipline, not cost your team games with petty, selfish and even stupid penalties.

The type of play exhibited by Versteeg in several games this year was indicative of a player who wants out of town. If that was truly the case, then Burke was right to flip him for early round draft picks. When the tight offer comes in for Jiggy, it would be nice to open up a skating roster spot also, for example one of Lebda, Sjostrom or Lupul could be packaged with Giguere to bring us one high value prospect / young NHLer, or a good prospect and a high draft pick.

Leafs GM Burke building toward 2014 Stanley Cup

This is a refreshing change from recent years, when the Leafs would add expensive established talent as free agents and at the trade deadline, only to fall short and have to carry the costly dead wood into future seasons.

Some may believe Burke has gone too deep into the kindling, however I can see sparks that will build some decent fires in the years ahead, with a Stanley Cup run being possible around 2013-2014.