The Toronto Maple Leafs have overhauled their roster and they may not be done trading
Daily Faceoff Toronto: Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts on Toronto Maple Leafs Mile Wood: “I think they were trying to flip Miles Wood that day. I think they were trying to work on trades to see if they could move him elsewhere, but obviously that didn’t happen.”
Sportsnet: James Mirtle on the JD Bunkis Podcast talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap situation and if they’ll use some of the space for a needed depth defenseman.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bunkis: “Leafs move a ton of money to LTIR. (Dakota) Joshua goes there, (Max) Domi’s there, (Elvis) Merzlikins, and you’ve got cap space. There’s some buzz that Toronto would be willing to continue to move from their asset pile. Primarily when people think about that, they now think of Colorado’s first-round pick that they acquired in the Roy trade.
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What have you heard in terms of Toronto’s aggression level or the way that they are continuing to search for options on their blue line?
Mirtle: “Yeah, they’re they’re monitoring for a defenseman, and I, I don’t know the caliber of that. My understanding, I think Joshua’s going to be back at some point. I don’t think this is like a Robidas Island, he’s out for the year, you know. LTIR, you got to miss 10 games or 30 days, I think, is or 24 days or something like that. So my understanding is that he could be back at the end of that. So you can’t really spend that money.
But, you know, Merzlikins is, is out for the year. Domi is going to be out for the year, and hopefully he’s able to resume his career at some point. So you do have the $3.75 million from Domi right now that you can spend. And if you’re making a deal with some retention or something, that could be a pretty good defenseman that you’re bringing in.
And it’s interesting though, you look at their asset pool, and there’s not a ton there. There’s not, they don’t have like a lot of high-end prospects to pull from with the Marlies. I think that that Colorado pick makes a lot of sense. I’m just, I’m not sure at this early juncture in the season what that’s going to get you. That feels like more like a closer to the mid-season or the deadline kind of situation.
But I’m sure the the front office is thinking that the sooner we can get another piece in here, the more it’s going to help us be relevant, you know, at the trade deadline, as opposed to waiting till late in the season. They don’t have the luxury where they know they’re going to be in the playoffs and they can wait to make a move.
So monitoring what’s happening, trying to use that LTIR space makes a lot of sense, and they’re just going to be in the conversation. I mean, we’ve already seen how aggressive Chayka is. They’re going to be in the conversation any time a defenseman becomes available. And maybe it means they flip, you know, not only use that LTIR space, they flip one of their defensemen as well, and it’s they’re looking for like an upgrade.
And they weren’t thinking that they were going to move off of Emil Andre, that kind of happened at the last minute to get the trade through. So they’re a little bit thinner depth-wise than they were thinking they were going to be coming into the year.
And you know, if one of the big defensemen goes down, they’ve got (Nick) Blankenberg. But then you’re then you’re into the Marlies and you’re into you know (Dakota) Mermis and maybe (Ben) Danford gets a look or something like that. So they could certainly use some more depth.
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And I suspect that it’s going to be one of those things that we’re monitoring here for a while, which defensemen become available and who that could be. I don’t think it’s someone like (Alexander) Nikishin from Carolina, just because his ask on a contract is, is massive, and I think fitting in that kind of a deal would be challenging. But any other names that become available, they’re going to be looking at.”
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