Toronto Maple Leafs centre Tyler Bozak is a logical choice to be traded.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are over-stocked with quality NHL wingers, and moving Bozak would allow the Leafs to try William Nylander on his own line. Given the success of the Penguins when they were able to run 3 x #1 centres down the middle, its incumbent on the Leafs to ice a similar lineup, if at all possible. (And Bonino did put up 5v5 numbers worthy of a 1C).
As far as I can tell, since 2008 when they lost in the SCF to the Red Wings, the Penguins have made the Stanley Cup Finals in every year they were able to ice a healthy Crosby-Malkin-Staal/Bonino combo. In the salary-cap era, most teams just can’t match-up against a team with essentially three first lines. This is something Matthews-Kadri-Nylander down the middle would accomplish.
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Additionally, Bozak has over a $4 million dollar cap hit, and moving him will allow the team to get Brown/Marner off the fourth line. Trading him is, at this point, a no-brainer.
Rumours
As tends to happen when a player is so obviously a trade candidate, the rumours are starting to heat up.
Over on Hockeybuzz, Eklund lists the Rangers and Blue Jackets as teams interested in acquiring Bozak. Over at our sister-site, the Rangers focused Blue Line Station, they seem on board with picking up Bozak.
Even the Hockey News is getting in on the action, listing Bozak as a likely trade chip. Finally, TSN says that the Blue Jackets just missed out on Duchene and are looking for a scoring forward and are willing to trade defense. They make a perfect trade match for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The player the Leafs should be targeting on the Blue Jackets is David Savard. Savard is a 27 year old right-shooting defenseman. He is signed for three more years after this one, but with Werenski and Jones, the Jackets are stacked on defense. Savard gets paid a very reasonable $4.25 cap hit, meaning his salary and Bozak’s salary are basically a wash.
Since Bozak is a UFA, the Leafs would probably have to add more in order to make this happen, but even if they had to spend a couple of picks, or give them a prospect or two, it would be worth it to add a top-four defensemen of such high regard.
This would allows the Leafs to finally give Rielly a legit partner, solve the problem of playing Hainsey on his wrong side and too high in the lineup, and fix the Leafs defensive woes.
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Morgan Rielly (who is having a Norris Trophy type season so far this year) and David Savard would be one of the best pairings in the NHL. If you followed that up with Gardiner-Carrick and Hainsey-Zaitsev, then the Leafs would have a very, very solid blue-line for years to come.
Tyler Bozak is rumoured to be for sale, and the Leafs should be looking for a defenseman in return, even if they have to sweeten the deal.