Toronto yesterday picked up Wayne Primeau, a 33-year-old journeyman grinder, from Calgary in exchange for defenceman Anton Stralman, forward Colin Stuart and a seventh-round draft pick in the 2012 NHL Hocket Bet draft.
While Primeau doesn't fill the Leafs' need for offence – he didn't score in 24 games with the Flames last season and has just 66 goals in 715 career games – he is a prototypical bottom two-line guy in the world of Leafs general manager Brian Burke. Big at 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, fearless and willing to mix it up in the corners, he's also regarded as a solid dressing room presence.
Primeau, whose brother Keith was a star in Philadelphia and Carolina, missed 58 games last season with an ankle injury that he says was the result of "a freak accident" when he was hit by a Dion Phaneuf slap shot at the tail end of a practice. It was at first diagnosed as a bone bruise and Primeau kept playing, but it got worse and worse until a foot specialist found multiple fractures in the ankle and he went under the knife.
"They had to go in and remove some pieces and shave it down. It was a tough season," he recounted in a telephone interview last night. "To miss the last 60 games and the playoffs was really tough."
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