Leafs Rumours: Toronto looked into Erik Karlsson before the trade deadline

If you thought you were done with weekly rumours updates on this site after the trade deadline… you’ll eventually be right. For now, we have a bit of a rumour of something that could have been but wasn’t at the deadline. It’s via Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts citing that the Leafs were in on both Mattias Ekholm and Erik Karlsson.
Elliotte’s report is that the Leafs inquired about both players, but it couldn’t make cap sense for them. Ekholm ultimately went to Edmonton and Nashville only retained 4% of the contract in the process, and Erik Karlsson will finish his Norris calibre season in San Jose. That’s where it gets interesting.
Things won’t change for the Sharks after the season ends. They are still needing assets to rebuild and that’s their priority. Things won’t change for Karlsson too much either. He might not have a career year in the remaining four years of his contract, but he is still a premier offensive defenseman and one of the league’s best right-shot defensemen. His contract will take him until he’s 36 and he has a bit more of an injury history than say Mark Giordano, so there might be a steeper dropoff (there often is with elite skaters when age catches up to them), but he potentially still has a lot to offer, although with an $11.5M …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

The Honour Roll: Final grades for the whole trade season

It’s final over. The trade season and all the rumours and speculation finished until the 10 minutes after the Leafs (hopefully long) playoff run is over. Exhale. It’s time to talk about hockey.
Before we get all the way back to the business of watching games, we need to grade the work of Kyle Dubas. It seems like there are two sets of grades that need to happen, the ones now based entirely on the optics of the transaction, and the ones that will come later with the benefit of hindsight of whether or not everyone did what they were supposed to do. We’ll see if we remember to do that. For now, here are the final thoughts on the Leafs trade deadline.
Colin Hunter: A-
Taken as a whole, Kyle Dubas’ “trade deadline” – being the moves he made from Ryan O’Reilly / Noel Acciari onwards – was great.
While you can analyze each trade individually, the current roster as a unit feels much stronger. While in my ideal world the team would have added one more scoring forward, the forward group overall has become much more versatile, and the bottom six seems to now have an identity – which it has lacked this season. Defensively, depth has certainly b …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Leafs Rumours: Last call for trades

Leafs Rumours: Last call for trades

It’s deadline day. Rumours are somewhat pointless at this stage as everything will go down in a matter of hours, but nevertheless, we’ve got to start somewhere and here’s what is out there in the grand scheme of Leafs rumours…

Connecting dots on #Leafs cap after McCabe/Lafferty trade:
1. Either Toronto is not planning to activate Matt Murray until the playoffs.2. Or Toronto is now moving one of Kerfoot / Engvall / Holl before the deadline.
Seems to be some smoke recently with Kerfoot and #Canucks.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) February 27, 2023

Kerfoot remains one of the most likely Leafs to be on the move, especially if the Leafs are looking to do something big. Frank’s rumour predates the Schenn trade, so maybe the smoke around the Canucks wasn’t related to Kerfoot at all.
There still could be something around the Canucks, if they’d rather have Kerfoot’s one year cap hit of $3.5M and are willing to eat a bit of Garland’s contract to make a swap there.
As for Kerfoot, he’s not a completely undesirable option for playoff bound teams, his prorated $775k salary is easy for sellers to take on if there is a worry about actual dollars being paid, but there is a complication when it comes to Alex having a 10 team no trade list.
I continue to believe it is far more likely that David Kampf would be the odd man out as Kerfoot is a more versatile option for the Leafs.
Justin Holl lands on Chris Johnston’s trade bo …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Jakob Chychrun is being connected to the Leafs again

Jakob Chychrun is being connected to the Leafs again

When rumours repeatedly connect Kyle Dubas to a defenseman for the Leafs it seems like we better prepare ourselves for that rumour becoming a possible reality.
Jake Muzzin was rumoured to Toronto from pretty much the moment that Kyle Dubas took over as GM. TJ Brodie was nearly acquired for Nazem Kadri, and now here we are again with the on again off again speculation about Jakob Chychrun out of Arizona.
Nick Kypreos just did what we’ve done a couple of times on this site, and that was writing a column basically gazing at Chychrun like he’s a pie cooling on a window sill. Like most of us when looking at Chychrun, Kypreos’ argument boiled down to three things: Jakob is only 24, he eats minutes and a $4.6M cap hit looks very doable. Most of his underlying numbers can be forgiven because of his role and his team, and he’s a defenseman who puts up points. People like points.
Also to Kypreos’ credit, while he was talking about Chychrun as a replacement for Muzzin’s injury-laden career, he acknowledged that Chychrun is very much in the same boat injury-wise, just at a different stage in his career: “His body has been through a lot the last few years — surgeries on both knees, his shoulder, and most recently his wrist and ankle.”
I swear, if people ever got past those bad y …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Zach Aston-Reese potentially joining the Maple Leafs makes a lot of sense

There’s no shortage of rumours surrounding the Maple Leafs with less than 24 hours until NHL Free Agency begins.
Among reports on Tuesday was Elliotte Friedman discussing what Toronto might do when the gates open at noon on Wednesday. He talked about Rasmus Sandin re-signing, Denis Malgin (yes, you heard that right), and the potential of Zach Aston-Reese potentially joining the Maple Leafs.
Tuesday Rumour Report: Sandin and goaltending remain the priority, Aston-Reese looking like a lock, and “Malgin?”
Every ounce of these rumours continue to gain my interest, but I do want to dive into Aston-Reese a bit because, well, it’s always intriguing to see what a player outside of the organization might bring.
First of, let’s be clear that Aston-Reese isn’t a point-getter and won’t turn into that if he joins Toronto either. Instead of points, the 27-year-old will bring hits to the Maple Leafs.
Wayne Simmonds had the most hits on Toronto last season, laying the body 148 times across 72 games. Aston-Reese, who spent time with Pittsburgh and Anaheim last year, threw 231 hits (!!!) in just 69 games played. So, it’s safe to say he’s a heavy hitter.
There’s only been two seasons where the 27-year-old didn’t have over 100 hits — his rookie year and the 56-game season back in 2021 (he had 95 in 45 games that year).
Aside from his hitting capabilities, Aston-Reese is a defensive specialist who can neutralize play in his own team’s zone. He won’t give you the greatest offensive productio …

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Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation

Tuesday Rumour Report: Sandin and goaltending remain the priority, Aston-Reese looking like a lock, and “Malgin?”

It’s the home stretch of rumours and speculation and we’re a day from signing and trade announcements. That’s a bit of a relief. Soon we can stop guessing at who fits into the Leafs roster and instead spend the next couple of months creating Leafs line combinations in notes on our phone while sitting on the toilet (maybe that’s an oddly specific trait of mine that isn’t a universal experience.)
Anyways, Elliotte Friedman had a fair bit of Leafs information crammed into a tiny paragraph today, so we’re going to blow it up and turn it into a lot more.
Toronto will look for another goalie and try to sign Rasmus Sandin with their remaining cap room. One team indicated that even 1B or No. 2 goalies could still do very well in this market, so it won’t be as easy as it sounds. One potential depth target for the Maple Leafs: forechecker extraordinaire Zach Aston-Reese. They could also bring back Denis Malgin from Switzerland.
It really doesn’t feel like we can say a lot more on the first two things. The importance of getting Sandin figured out and fast is painfully clear. Having nothing to show for Sandin but a second round pick would be disastrous, but so would be paying a ransom for his contract. He’s kinda backed the Leafs into a corner and we’ve seen t …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation