Within the past calendar year, Tomas Kaberle has played for four teams and six coaches. After leaving Toronto, he was generally pretty ineffective in Boston, failing to ignite their powerplay. But he still managed to help the Bruins win a Stanley Cup (however inconsequential his contribution may have been). This season he continued his disappointing play in Carolina before finding himself in Montreal. It has been as rough as any year highlighted by a championship ring could be.

There has definitely been no seller’s regret in Toronto.

Kaberle’s replacement in Toronto, John-Michael Liles, a player who in a way was a part of the initial trade with Boston (the conditional second rounder Boston sent the Leafs was shipped to Colorado for Liles) has integrated into the Leafs lineup and filled the role vacated by Kaberle seamlessly.

Liles forms the first defensive pairing on the Leafs’ powerplay and has helped ignite a once dormant unit that was 22nd in the league last season. With Liles quarterbacking the man-advantage, Toronto sits 3rd in league, helping propel the Leafs to a top-10 offense.

Liles has 21 points on the year, which before sustaining a concussion was one more than Phaneuf, and has accumulated 10 of those on the powerplay. He was advertised as a Kaberle-lite when the Leafs acquired him, but considering the way Kaberle has played recently you wonder who the knockoff really is.

As a bonus, the Indianapolis native has provided a steady influence on the back-end, playing a pretty solid game and rarely showing the defensive deficiencies that Kaberle frequently did during his later “I don’t give a shit” years.

But these positives mean the Leafs have a dilemma.