Toronto Maple Leafs Rumour: Canucks Into Nikita Zaitsev

The Toronto Maple Leafs off-season is in full-swing, even thought the Stanley Cup hasn’t even been awarded yet.

The recent rumblings about the Toronto Maple Leafs include Nazem Kadri’s trade availability, Nikita Zaitsev requesting a trade, and Patrick Marleau agreeing to waive his no-movement clause to go home to the West Coast.

Yesterday’s news was even more interesting.

On Sportsnet Radio the other night, Elliotte Friedman was on and he talked about the Vancouver Canucks being interested in Nikita Zaitsev.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks

When pressed to rank their interest in Zaitsev, Friedman said of the Canucks that it was a “four out of five.”

The host asked Friedman: “On a scale of one to five, one being they’ve made a phone call, number three they’ve made a phone call with interest, number five being they want him.”

Friedman said “I think you always have to leave wiggle room, so I’ll go four. I think they’re in. I think they’re interested.”

That’s pretty sweet.  My interpretation of that is that it’s pretty close to getting done but Friedman doesn’t want to guarantee it.  Maybe that’s just me hearing what I want to hear, who knows?

The fact is, if there is interest in Zaitsev, that’s a good thing for the Leafs. It’s not as if Zaitsev is total garbage, but the money you’re paying him could easily be better spent. In a cap world, that’s the most important factor.

So who does Vancouver have?

It depends how much they want him. It’s hard to know whether whether Zaitsev is a cap-dump who the Leafs should give away for almost nothing, or if a right-handed former 30 point defenseman being used in an exclusive defensive role on a team with a lot of gifted puck-moving defensemen has some value.

The Canucks don’t have a lot of bad contracts.  They’ve got Brandon Sutter who is 30 for two more years at $4.5. Antoine Russel and Jay Beagle are for some reason still signed for another three years at $3 million. (All cap info from capfriendly.com).  Cap issues aside, the Toronto Maple Leafs wouldn’t have any interest in any of those players.

It would seem to me that you can’t go around giving out discounts to a guy who gave a 32 year old Jay Beagle a four year contract for $3 million.  By that example, Zaitsev is a positive bargain.

That’s really it for bad contracts on Vancouver though.  You would think Chris Tanev would be an option for the Leafs, but his contract is over after next year and he’s better than Zaitsev (if injury prone) anyways.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have four seventh round picks in 2020, and that’s what I’d target from the Canucks here.  Make it a clean five picks.  Get out of a bad deal and give the Canucks someone whose career they might be able to revive.