Toronto Maple Leafs: Rumour Roundup

There have been a ton of rumours and speculation around the Toronto Maple Leafs in the past few weeks.

At this very moment, the Toronto Maple Leafs have approximately 20 million USD in cap space.

That is certainly enough salary to either give William Nylander a new contract and potentially add another defenseman and/or forward.

With a decent chunk of cap space, Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs have been rumoured to be active in landing another asset or two.

The names that have been thrown out on Twitter and blogs across the internet include Chris Tanev, Brandon Montour, Artemi Panarin, Jacob Trouba, Brandon Davidson, Tobias Enstrom, Jared Spurgeon, Nino Niederreitter, Justin Faulk, Jeff Skinner and Slava Voynov.

In this post, I’m going to look at all of the options above and give my opinion on which players would be good assets for the Maple Leafs to acquire.

Who I’d Avoid

On July 11th, Michael Augello of SportingNews.com wrote a post on the top five defensemen that the Toronto Maple Leafs should target. One of the defensemen that Augello listed is former Los Angeles Kings defenseman, Slava Voynov.  Unbelievable.

Voynov hasn’t played in the NHL since the 2014-15 regular season. In October of 2014, he was suspended by the NHL after Voynov was arrested for domestic violence. After the trial, Voynov was found guilty and served a 90 day sentence in jail. Once his sentence was completed, he returned to Russia to avoid deportation.  He should stay there.

Earlier this summer, Voynov returned back to North America. His plan was to go back to court and hope that the State of California would withdraw the charge from his record. The court ended up siding with Voynov and now his record is clean.  But his reputation is not.

With his record clean, he’s now rumoured to be talking to the NHL about a potential reinstatement. Which is an absolute joke.

While the Toronto Maple Leafs need a right handed defenseman, they do not need this guy. Even suggesting this is too far.  Voynov should not be welcomed back into the NHL.

My Top Choice

Let’s now jump to my top choice. In this case, my top choice is a trade in which the Toronto Maple Leafs would be acquiring two assets.

On July 15th, my colleague, James Tanner wrote a post about two Minnesota Wild players that would be an excellent fit in Toronto.

The two players that Tanner listed are Jared Spurgeon and Nino Niederreitter. Both players would fill a major void that the Toronto Maple Leafs have. After losing Leo Komarov to the New York Islanders, the Maple Leafs are short a defensive forward. In addition, the Maple Leafs defensive core looked sluggish last year and it was evident that there was a gap on the right side. With Niederreitter and Spurgeon, the void would be filled. Niederreitter has shown throughout his career that he can be pivotal at both ends of the ice and Spurgeon would give the Maple Leafs a solid right handed defenseman to pair with Morgan Rielly.

Spurgeon & Niederreitter

Last season, was a solid season for both Spurgeon and Niederreitter. In 61 games played, Spurgeon tallied 9 goals, 28 assists, 13 PPP, 24:33 ATOI, 8.2 S%, 50.0 CF%, 64 hits and 127 blocks. On the other hand, Niederreitter registered 18 goals, 14 assists, 8 PPP, 15:00 ATOI, 13.5 S%, 52.8 CF%, 58 hits and 20 blocks in 63 games played.

The best part is neither player would be considered a rental. Spurgeon is under team control till July 1, 2020 and Niederreitter’s contract will expire at the end of the 2021-22 regular season.

The Minnesota Wild should be inclined to move Spurgeon and Niederreitter. Paul Fenton, the general manager of the Wild should be looking to add some offensive assets to try to compete for a Stanley Cup.

Unfortunately for Wild fans, their team hasn’t made it past the first round of the playoffs since the 2014-15 season. In addition, their offense last season crumbled. In the 2016-17 regular season, the Wild were second in the NHL for GF/GP with 3.21 goals. Last season, wasn’t as offensively sound in Minnesota. The Wild finished eleventh in the NHL for GF/GP with 3.05 goals.

If Fenton moves Spurgeon and Niederreitter, he can get a significant haul to improve the Wild’s offense. Perhaps, Fenton will look to the Toronto Maple Leafs to grab some offensive assets.

Recap

Other names that have been linked to the Leafs are:

Nick Shore, which Tanner wrote about here and which a lot of people seem to think would be a good cheap fit. Not sure this qualifies as a rumour but maybe more of a logical choice.

Chris Tanev is another player which falls in the logical camp as opposed to the rumour one.  He is a right handed extremely talented defensive player who could easily be the Toronto Maple Leafs top right handd dman. Injuries remain a concern for him, however.

Elliotte Friedman brought up the name Artemi Panarin last week and Leafs nation went nuts.  Obviously adding another super-elite top tier player is going to help the team, regardless of positional need.  The question is will the Leafs pay the cost it would take for just a rental?

Mike Stephens discusses the pros and cons of going for it here.

And finally we close with the longest running rumour in world history: The Toronto Maple Leafs and Jacob Trouba.  This is a player that the Leafs have been rumoured to be interested in for what seems like years.  His relationship with the Jets seems acrimonious and he though he recently signed an arbitrator’s award for a one year deal, you’d have to think the Jets move him at some point.  The cost would be enormous, however.

Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs have many options, but I believe that Spurgeon and Niederreitter would be the best fit. With the Toronto Maple Leafs having multiple gaps in their lineup, it makes more sense to make a trade for two assets rather than sign two UFAs.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs acquire both players, they’ll be considered the best team in the NHL.  If they don’t already. We shall wait and see what happens.

stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com, research from capfriendly.com and wikipedia.com