uncus, I think a problem here, is your under-estimation of Kaberle's trade value just because you don't like him.
Kaberle is a gone ... either this off season or as a free agent ... not worth the money he is going to get.
Is kaberle going to take the leafs to the promised land ... no .. proven point.
It's a pretty common but a misleading arguement.
So Kaberle is not going to 'take the Leafs to the promised land'. What is that supposed to mean, really?
Even if your assumption is correct, name me a player who can take the Leafs to the promised land all by himself, that's not named Crosby, Malkin or Ovechkin? (And even Ovie has failed to take the Caps ANYWHERE)
Is say, Staal, a good player? For sure. A good building block going forward? For sure. Is he going to take the Leafs to the promised land all by himself? NO!
When the Ducks won the cup, was it Getzlaf doing all the work? No. Perry? Was it Niedermayer winning the playoff all by himself? Pronger? JSG?
They won the cup because they have a lot of good pieces, but none of them is going to win the cup all by himself.
And Kaberle IS a good piece of the puzzle. Just because he isn't going to win a series all by himself doesn't mean you don't need him on a winning taem. Pittsburgh needed Gonchar for their cup run, but Gonchar isn't going to lead us, or any team, to the promised land all by himself, so what exactly does that prove?
Then, you further downplayed Kaberle's trade value saying he's turning UFA in a year and he's not worth the $$ he's going to get. Exactly what kind of $$ do you think he's going to get? Last time Kaberle signed the $4.25M contract I'm sure a lot of people thought he was going to get more. But he left a lot of $$ on the table because he gave the Leafs a hometown discount. He might very well do that again.
And here's an interesting question. You think Kaberle is going to get a lot of $$ on the open market, but then you also think Kaberle is not gonna be part of a winning team. So why would other GMs pay him the big bucks?
Kaberle is a premiere puck moving offensive defenseman that every winning team needs. At 32, Kaberle still has a lot of years left in the tank because of the game he plays. If we trade away Kaberle, we're gonna have to replace that puck moving game in him. I'm not saying "don't trade Kaberle" ... I am saying don't under-estimate his trade value just because he's got 1 year left on his contract, and we haven't done squad with him in the lineup. We could have Crosby in the lineup and we wouldn't have done squad the last few years, especially with Raycroft / Vesa in goal.