Toronto Maple Leafs: Erik Gudbranson, Person of Interest
The Toronto Maple Leafs are apparently in the hunt.
I’ll be real, when I came across a headline with the name Erik Gudbranson and the Toronto Maple Leafs, I had to take a second look.
I wasn’t too familiar with his career, to be completely honest, glad I spent some time doing my research on the guy and now here we are.
Yes, yesterday I wrote about Tyson Barrie based off some previous speculation and now it appears as though there’s some even more in-depth talk regarding this Vancouver Canucks blueliner.
Part of my job is scouring the Internet daily for any and everything regarding the Leafs, I love it actually because I always feel like I’m up to date all the time.
Today, it’s more acquisition talk, so let’s get right into things, enough dilly-dallying, right?
Some Context
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This player is a big boy, stay at home defenseman with a heavy right shot, but I’m more concerned with the stay at home part, which is exactly what the Leafs would get with him.
Gudbranson towers at 6’5″ and weighs a bulky 220 lb (kinda light for his stature – get that, 220’s light, ha) and is only 25 years of age.
He was drafted by the Florida Panthers 3rd overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft and has since landed in Vancouver, signing a one-year deal worth $3.5 million and will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2017-18 season.
If he doesn’t get traded early, he’ll be trade bait by the deadline, 100%.
Gudbranson has some history with the Leafs dating back to November 5, 2016, Matt Martin hit his teammate (rookie Troy Stecher) and a line brawl proceeded, if you remember that game correctly, I know you do.
Quite hectic.
Anyways, Gudbranson yelled, “Matt Martin’s dead. Everyone can hear that now. F****** dead.”, when he was on his way to the dressing room to which he later apologized for.
He was also suspended one game earlier in the season for a board on Frank Vatrano of the Boston Bruins, really an old-time player.
Fun stuff, onto the rumour.
Gudbranson Rumour
Enough about context, let’s get to the meat of the story, which is taken from a post by Brian La Rose of Pro Hockey Rumors.
I’m going to paraphrase some of the content and then quote the rest, okay?
The Canucks general manager, Jim Benning, has openly come out saying that his team is in a rebuild and that they have plans for Gudbranson (an extension), but there’s a fair bit of interest in his services around the League, in particular, from the Leafs.
"The 25-year-old has played in 18 games so far with Vancouver this season and has yet to record a point. However, he sits second on the team in both hits and blocked shots and would give Toronto another defense-first option on their back end. Lavoie added that Toronto is ideally looking to add a defender before December’s holiday break (from December 24th to the 26th)."
First off, Renaud Lavoie is a TVA Sports reporter who was featured on Sportsnet 590 speculating the above, glad we got that out of the way.
If that’s true, then the Leafs are really looking for someone and someone soon at that, would Gudbranson be the fit they need or is there still too much animosity from the encounter last November?
It would be a shame for him to shave the glorious moustache if he came to Toronto and he’d have to choose a different number since 44 is taken, but still.
You decide.