Tyler Bozak is an interesting player;the Maple Leafs miscast him as a first-line center years ago and, for a few reasons, largely have continued to use him as such. What would Bozak do Lee Smith Jersey away from Phil Ke sel? What would he do in different minutes? We might be on the verge of finding out the Leafs are trying to trade the 28-year-old, according to : There's increased chatter around Bozak, as Damien Cox reported last Saturday. As a general rule, the tightened cap has teams nervous about term, and he's got three years remaining with a $4.2M hit. He's had a rough year and a change of scenery benefits everyone. What do potential trade partners see in him? If it's a No. 2 centre, that cap number is reasonable. If a No. 3, it's high. But this is a move Toronto is trying to make. It's certainlya move they should be trying to make; Bozak's offensive production is decent enough (15G, 21A) despite the Leafs' trainwreck of a season, and it's tough to imagine his value improving much over the next few years. It's time for the Leafs to blow things up. MORE: | (Bozakdoes have a partial no-movement clause, though, which unnece sarilycomplicates things. Those should be treated as a major weapon in contract negotiations, and generally are; ex-Penguins GM Ray Shero haggled with Kris Letang over one in 2013. That's understandable for a Norris-caliber defenseman, which Bozak is not.) What is he, though? Where should he fit? An easy way to get a feel for what he's done since 2012-13 is through the / HERO charts. Those adjusta player's numbers for usage teammates, competition,zone starts, etc. and compare them to the average production of first-fourth liners. That's all over the place.We can look at it line-by-line, from best to worst: No surpriseBozak gets first-line caliber ice time.That's a direct result of coaching decisions over the last few years. A sists/60 is also first-line caliber, and also shouldn't be a surprise. Bozak is feeding one of the very few most-productive goal-scorers in the league. Points/60 dips below the first-line average. That makes sense; he scores goals at a third-line rate, which cancels out his a sists/60. Bozak's Corsi numbers are where things start to get dodgy. The sheeramount of 5-on-5shot attempts he's on the ice for per 60 minutes of play still puts him in second-line territory. What nukes that, though, are how many attempts the Leafs allow with him on the ice. That's replacement-level stuff, and drops his adjusted Corsi percentage to somewhere between third- and fourth-line levels. The next logical question: How much does Ke sel have to do with all of this? From 2012-15, . All but a little more than 323 minutes of that has been with Ke sel. Another way of putting that: over the past three seasons, Bozak has spent 13 percent of his 5-on-5 minutes without Ke sel next to him. In that time, he's produced zero goals and six a sists. His on-ice shot-attempt numbers drop, too; without Ke sel, Bozak is on for about13 attempts for le s/60 minutes (55.88-42.08).What's worse: He'son for nearly 10 more attempts against/60 minutes (76.74-66.63). In short, away from Ke sel, in terms of his ability to stop opponents from shooting the puck, he's probablyeven worse than the chart implies. And what the chart implies is not good. All that makes it impo sible to view him as a second-line center. Defensively, it's not up for debate he's been the trigger man on a line that, in terms of shot attempts, hasgotten hammered by top-six competition for years. That can't be attributed solely to playing style.From a point-production standpoint, he's been OK, but and we're including the eye test here that certainly seems dependent on Ke sel. So, let's say whichever team trades for him should throw out the idea of playing him in tough minutes. If they rely on their top lines for that, Bozak would be interesting to seeon a third, still offensively-inclined line with decent wingers that he can set up in a lower-stakes version of the high-event style he's played in Toronto. Or, you hope you can teach him to play differently. Still, it's easy to see his shot-suppre sion problems still bleeding through as his point production dips considerably. He's certainly not going to be playing with someone of Ke sel's caliber.Either way, it's probably not the right way to spend $4.2 million for the next three years. Jack Neely Jersey