Toronto Maple Leafs: Dubas Needs To Shop in Beverly Hills
Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs need to acquire a right handed defenseman.
It’s no secret that the Toronto Maple Leafs need another right handed defenseman. Last season, Maple Leafs nation watched the defense struggle. Roman Polak , Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev let the team down in the defensive and the neutral zone. So, it’s time for Dubas to go shopping.
Dubas could go shopping in Southern California. He could walk around Beverly Hills and window shop or he could place a phone call down to Rob Blake, general manager of the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings will be eager to move some salary as they currently have 4.25 million USD in cap space. If the Kings want to make it far into the playoffs next year, they’ll need to spend this off-season. Unfortunately for the Kings, the dynasty seems to have crashed and burned. If Blake expects to return to the glory days, he’ll need to shed some salary.
In that conversation with Blake, Dubas should be pushing hard to land Alec Martinez.
Martinez is a 30 year old right handed defenseman from Rochester Hills, Michigan. Last season for the Kings was one of his worst seasons in the NHL. He registered a 46.4 corsi-for percentage in 77 games played. His corsi-for percentage dropped by almost 8 percent from the season before. It’s extremely rare to see him own shaky defensive statistics and should be due for a rebound in the 2018-19 regular season.
Martinez’ Trade Value & Where He’d Fit
My readers might ask why I’d prefer Martinez over another Kings right handed defenseman named Drew Doughty.
The answer is simple. If I’m Kyle Dubas, I’m content with the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. I don’t want to cause potential harm and unload assets left and right. In fact, I wrote a post roughly four days ago that spoke about why the Maple Leafs should avoid Ottawa Senators’ defenseman, Erik Karlsson. The same reasoning that I used in that post applies to Doughty. If Dubas is hungry to land Doughty, he should wait until next off-season when he will be a UFA. This way the Maple Leafs don’t have to trade assets for a rental. In my mind, he’s a rental simply because we have no clue whether or not he’d re-sign in Toronto.
If Dubas trades for Martinez, it would require a lot less of a haul. He won’t come cheap, but you won’t have to worry about giving up William Nylander, Mitch Marner or a top prospect. Dubas might have to give up a draft pick or two, but it’ll be worth it for Martinez.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs net Martinez in a trade, he’ll likely play alongside Jake Gardiner on the second line. While a lot of Maple Leafs fans aren’t in love with Gardiner at the moment, the struggles he had in the playoffs weren’t entirely his fault. Let’s not forget, he’s been successful in the past and maybe he just needs a new line-mate. With Martinez by his side, perhaps Gardiner comes back to life.
Next: What UFA Defenseman Should the Leafs Target?
While Dubas could go with many different options on the right side, he should definitely consider Martinez. He’ll be due for a bounce back year and could potentially be a strong fit on the second pairing.
stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com