Toronto Maple Leafs: Scouting Potential Deadline Target Against Anaheim

While the Toronto Maple Leafs face off against the Anaheim Ducks tonight, Kyle Dubas will potentially scout a deadline target.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will have the opportunity to scout potential trade-deadline target Jakob Silfverberg tonight when the Anaheim Ducks come to town.

While Silfverberg may not be the only potential target tonight, he is the most attractive player to pursue, being the only one that could provide the Toronto Maple Leafs even more scoring depth to an already heavily armed offensive group. In combination with his friendly contract, he might just be the perfect fit.

Potential Return

For a team like the Anaheim Ducks, that’s falling behind their division rivals who have younger and more talented rosters, trading Silfverberg makes perfect sense. Their offensive core has aged and is in dire need of somewhat of a rebuild.

The Anaheim Ducks are struggling to produce offense, evident by their goals for a total of 123, ranking them 30th in the league. Silfverberg currently leads the Anaheim Ducks with 12 goals on the season, making him a valuable asset for any contending team to provide more scoring depth.

Since Silfverberg is in the last months of his contract, this is the perfect time for Anaheim to get something in return that could help them develop their offensive core for the future.

Likely Silfverberg would fetch the Anaheim Ducks a second-round pick in combination with a late-round pick. But a trade involving Jeremy Bracco might be worth the while for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Perfect Opponent

For the Toronto Maple Leafs, their meeting with the Anaheim Ducks could not have come at a better moment. Struggling of late themselves, they have seen the Tampa Bay Lightning run away in the standings and seen division rivals Montreal, Boston, and Buffalo creep closer.

Whereas their second place in the Atlantic Division seemed unchallenged a month ago, they have a battle for their second place instead of challenging the Lightning for the first place.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off a solid game against the Penguins, in which they won 3-2.  Before that, though, it was an O.T loss to the lowly Detroit Red Wings.  The Ducks should be the perfect recipe for the Leafs to put together a couple of solid games back to back.

A win tonight would give the Leafs five out of six possible points coming out of the all-star break and would certainly do a lot to put their recent struggles behind them.

I predict a shutout for Andersen tonight, giving the Toronto Maple Leafs a solid 5-0 win.

Enjoy the game tonight!

All stats from hockey-reference and naturalstattrick.