How real is the Stamkos talk?

I sense that most Maple Leaf fans look in the mirror often enough to realize a few things, including:  we often over-rate players (the ones we already have, and the ones we lust after from afar…).  It’s kind of a Toronto hockey tradition.

And when it comes to making deals, we generally want to trade a couple of third-line guys for a first line player. 

That said, most of the time we’re realistic enough to know that if we have players we’d like to see the Leafs move, other teams also have well-paid scouts who know exactly what’s going in.  They watch even more closely than us, and their job is to know what guys can and can’t do.  As fans, we don’t have the same pressure, obviously, as do those who makes these decisions for a living, but we do have plenty of opinions.

We also tend to want the blue and white to get any good player that’s out there, whether they’re a UFA or an RFA.  (We're OK with getting guys in trades, too- see the second paragraph above...)  And that’s fine.  As a fan, what else do we have to cheer for, if not for the club we like to go out and get the best players available and then hope the coaching staff to mold them into a great team?

When it comes to rumors, much of the time we can dismiss the chatter as idle talk, even in today's media age.  It used to be that the mainstream media would conjure up something and then people would run with it as gospel.  Nowadays, especially with twitter, “possibilities” are thrown out there and before we know it, if it's written often enough, it sounds pretty credible.

But I will say this: when you hear certain things long enough, you start to think that just maybe there is something to it.

Recent example?  Philadelphia forward Jeff Carter’s name had been “out there” for quite some time, as apparent trade bait.  I couldn’t believe the team that had drafted him as a premier talent in the first-round, groomed and developed him—and saw him becoming a real “Flyer”—would trade him in his apparent prime.  So I pretty much dismissed the idea.

Yet, not long ago, he was dealt by the Flyers to (of all teams) the lowly Blue Jackets.  Wow.

There was obviously something to those rumors, especially when we all heard Columbus GM Scott Howson in an interview saying he had been talking to the Flyers about Carter for a long time, going back well before the trade deadline.  Teams don’t just negotiate deals with one other club, so you have to know other clubs, including the Leafs, were involved in trade talks about Carter.  And word gets out.  It almost always does.

Which brings me to the Stamkos talk.

I have no idea if the guy I really “in play”.  Reports seem to suggest Tampa Bay has made him some very lucrative offers, but the guy wants huge money—and long term.  Are things actually at an impasse?  Can Yzerman afford to let him go?

As an offer sheet appears unlikely from any team, is it actually possible that the Leafs (who could afford an absurdly high contract, it seems) would make a trade for his rights, with the knowledge that they would in fact be able to sign him?

And for those who like a good conspiracy theory, what does it man that Schenn has not been re-signed as yet?

Have the Leafs, as many have surmised on chat forums, offered a package to Tampa Bay?  Are we to believe that Schenn is on the table?  (If I’m Yzerman, I want Schenn in any deal with the Leafs. Young defensemen are not easy to come by, obviously.) What about Kadri?  I believe he has been on the table in any number of deals for weeks now.

So there it is.  We armchair GM’s can offer, on Burke's behalf, Schenn, Kadri and, say, a number one pick for Stamkos.

If I was Yzerman, that wouldn’t do it for me.  I’d need Reimer, too.

And that’s a whole other conversation, eh?  But fun to consider about when there is not a whole lot of substantive hockey talk to keep us occupied.

What say you?  Do you really want Stamkos?  But if so, at what price?