Almost seamlessly we move from Friedman’s Leaf thoughts into
Darren Dreger’s with the weekly Dreger
Report.  Dreger has a lot on the
possibility of Antoine Vermette wanting to stay put, which certainly would
impact the
Bozak rumours that Friedman touched on.

Most importantly, Dreger has updated his chart of the
probability of which Leafs get moved. The most notable riser is (unexpectedly)
Mike Santorelli, but a couple more names also appear at the bottom of the list. 

(via TSN.ca)

So Bernier, van Riemsdyk and Rielly have been added. Dreger notes that Bernier and van Riemsdyk are there because teams have been calling about them and Rielly is there to emphasize that he’s absolutely untouchable. Dreger also notes that Kessel and Phaneuf jump to at least a 50% possibility in the offseason, which is nice that we have the context that this is strictly a trade deadline related list.

Dreger again points out that he views Phil Kessel as a supporting player, which is always good for fuelling twitter rage, but he did also drop this tidbit at the top of his section on the Leafs:

Given Dreger’s family ties to the Leafs it’s looking more and more like a proper rebuild can be accepted as the new reality, which is nice and certainly makes the idea of moving players like Bernier, Phaneuf, and Kessel seem like a good idea.

Just like it was noted at the bottom of the recent post on Friedman’s 30 thoughts, Dreger tweeted out the bonus structure of Kessel’s next contract year. With the Leafs being able to immediately eat $4M of Kessel’s deal by moving him on July 2nd, it’s likely the market for him expands significantly at that point.