Senators get Phaneuf from Maple Leafs in 9-player trade

For the Ottawa Senators the help comes now, for the Toronto Maple Leafs it comes later.

Former Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Dion Phaneuf (3) knocks Boston Bruins right wing Jimmy Hayes away from the puck during a February 2 game in Boston. Word on the street is teams will be unwilling to spend second-round picks for middling rental players this year, so Toronto should feel good about adding that No. 2 in the Phaneuf contract dump. We can see exactly what the Leafs are doing here.

Phaneuf, at the very least, upgrades the Senators’ back end as they race to catch up in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Only Phaneuf will have any impact on the team’s quest to the play offs as they sit 6 points to a ticket to the last act of this season.

It seems likely that the Senators could choose to pair Phaneuf with Erik Karlsson on the blue line, which, well, wouldn’t that be something? I’ll always be left wondering why it didn’t come together better for Frattin given he has National Hockey League tools – his skating and his shot – but it just didn’t.

20 – The number of goals Phaneuf scored as a rookie in the 2005-06 season.

The future: The St. John’s native will finish the season in junior this season and try to make an impression the Senators’ camp in the fall. Hiller was steller in his performance turning aside 36 shots compared Reimer’s 22.

Murray said he hoped the trade would help Ottawa contend for the playoffs not only this spring, but beyond.

“It’s a fresh start for me”, Phaneuf said as teammates grouped around excitedly to watch their newest defenceman speak.

Perhaps the most immediate impact of this trade is that, in theory, it increases Toronto’s chances of finishing dead last and getting a crack at Auston Matthews with the first-overall draft pick and maybe that’s the part of the Stamkos puzzle that tips the scales.

The key for the Leafs in this trade is longterm financial flexibility.

Toronto gets a player that may develop further or may land better future assets. Greening, a Cornell graduate, earned a roster spot with Ottawa after that season and signed a big contract extension but became a frequent healthy scratch during the 2014-15 season and was eventually sent back to Binghamton after being unclaimed on waivers.

He’s the second core player with a long-term contract to be unloaded by the Leafs’ relatively new leadership group steered by team president Brendan Shanahan and general manager Lou Lamoriello.

“You don’t see it a lot, especially in today’s game, between a division rival”, Phaneuf said. He makes $750,000 this season and is free-agent eligible this summer.

Lamoriello saw no limit to the flexibility the transaction would provide.

“It’s probably the weirdest thing you’ll ever have to go through if you ever get traded mid-season”, said Stajan.

As much for perception as reality, the trading of Phaneuf leaves only Tyler Bozak and Joffrey Lupul as the final tokens of the Burke/Nonis era.

Phaneuf was such an energetic presence from the day he joined the Leafs that then-head coach Ron Wilson named him to a previously vacant captaincy after only 26 games.

The nine-player blockbuster trade stunned both fan bases.

Still, Calgary built a 4-1 lead in the second period thanks to tallies from Micheal Ferland and Hamilton (Hamilton’s eighth of the year came off Granlund’s clean face-off win with Mark Arcobello).