Toronto Maple Leafs: Kerby Rychel and the Florida Panthers

Kerby Rychel has entered the Toronto Maple Leafs trade rumor mill.

You can add this top prospect to your list of Toronto Maple Leafs rumors, I know, there’s a lot of them.

In a pleasantly surprising turn of events, Josh Leivo was protected by the Leafs, leaving a couple of good players exposed.

One of them is none other than Rychel, a former first-round draft pick by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Now, with all the under the table deals going on between teams and the Vegas Golden Knights, it’s literally anyone’s guess at who will be picked from each team.

Obviously, there are some players that one would take a look at and automatically think it should be a no-brainer.

However, picks and prospects are the want from the team.

That means these kinds of deals to avoid a certain exposed player in return for such things are happening.

A guy like Josh Manson for example, an obvious player to go after, will probably stay with the Anaheim Ducks and in return, Vegas will likely receive some top notch pieces to avoid him.

Top notch.

That makes my job all the more difficult because I don’t really know if Rychel will stay a Leaf for a reason similar to that or not.

There’s a lot of others players for Vegas to select from the Leafs, one in particular who should be another no-brainer, Brendan Leipsic.

Reason enough to be on my fourth coffee of the day, but that’s not your problem.

Enter the Rychel rumor.

Kerby Rychel

More from Editor In Leaf

I like Kevin McGran and his work.

Naturally, I tend to read his stuff and quote him and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing here.

I used this article for my most recent piece on Connor Brown and I’m going to use it again.

"The Panthers, meanwhile, were said to be looking at Rychel, given new coach Bob Boughner’s connection with the winger and his dad Warren going back to junior days."

The connection if you weren’t sure is that Boughner was Rychel’s coach for a number of years.

The two spent a few seasons with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League together.

The ‘Boogieman’ was the head coach while Rychel was one of his star players.

I’m not giving the Mark Pysyk idea any merit, there’s nothing really there, just a hypothetical idea that was turned into a rumor.

Nothing wrong with the Sportsnet article at all, it was a good read.

However, anything could happen.

If there’s something to this whole Rychel thing, then there are a couple different options from the Panthers.

The most notable to me is Jason Demers.

I’d still like to see Rychel don a Leafs sweater, though.

But if he can help fetch the right defender, well, good luck to you in Florida and enjoy the weather.

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