Toronto Maple Leafs: Four Potential Off-Season Targets
By Neal DeRosa
The Toronto Maple Leafs have many options to improve their team this offseason.
Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Kyle Dubas is no stranger to thinking outside of the box and should seriously look to add this summer despite having expiring contracts to keep in mind.
The Leafs finished in a tie for sixth overall last season, one year after making the playoffs by one point, and two years removed from a last place overall finish (that netted them Auston Matthews). The team is clearly on an upward trajectory, and with only a single season left of Matthews’ and Mitch Marner’s entry-level contracts (very small cap hit vs probably around $20 million cap hit next year) the team has been forced into a win-now situation.
It is also highly probably that the Leafs lose James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, Tomas Plekanec and maybe even Matt Martin and Ron Hainsey this offseason. That’s a pretty tough list of people to replace, but luckily, with Andreas Johnson and Kasperi Kapanen (and Timothy Liljegren knocking at the door) the Leafs are well on their way to doing so.
In the following article I will look at a couple of players the Toronto Maple Leafs should get, the way they can acquire them and what they would bring to the Leafs lineup. These players won’t just help the Leafs replace the players they lose this summer, but should significantly make the team better.