Toronto Maple Leafs Rumours: Left-Handed Defensemen

The Toronto Maple Leafs left the NHL Entry Draft this weekend with Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Signed.

The Toronto Maple Leafs also unloaded a first round draft pick to the Carolina Hurricanes so that they would take the contract of Patrick Marleau.

In addition to these exciting moves, the Leafs are also still dealing with the Nikita Zaitsev and Mitch Marner situations.

On top of that, they’ve also found the time to engage in trade talks to fill out their blue-line.

Leafs Trade Rumours

Everyone keeps talking about how the Toronto Maple Leafs are desperately in need of right-handed defensemen.

The weird thing, however, is that the Leafs themselves do not seem to care.

Last year, they skated the left handed Ron Hainsey on the right side of their top pair.  When they needed to bolster their blue-line, they could have chosen from the clearly available right handeers like Nick Jensen and Radko Gudas, but instead chose to trade for the lefty, Jake Muzzin.

Last year at the draft, they took a left-handed defnseman in the first round.

And now who are the two names featured in this weeks trade rumours?  Left handers Jaccob Slavin and Darnell Nurse. (Not to mention the persistent rumours that the Leafs would prefer to re-sign lefty Jake Gardiner).  Those rumours were reported in the Athletic, by James Mirtle.

The Leafs seem to agree with those people who say that the handedness of a defnseman has been extremely (and suddenly) over-rated.  No one used to even mention it.  Now it’s all anyone talks about.

All things being equal, it would be preferable to have players on their proper sides.  But it is definitely better to go with a slightly better left hander, than a slightly worse right hander, just because you want a righty.

Both Nurse and Slavin are large defenseman who would add an element of size to the team, but both are also talented puck movers as well.

Nurse is 24 and Slavin is 25. Nurse needs a new contract, but Slavin is signed for five more years at a pretty reasonable $5.5 cap hit.  I wouldn’t mind seeing either player in the blue and white, depending on the cost.

Is the cost William Nylander?  If so that’s a hard pass.  He is younger, has  a higher ceiling and a contract that appears to be aging very, very well.

Is the cost Nazem Kadri?  If so, that’s reasonable.  Kadri has a very valuable contract, so from that perspective, he and Slavin are a good match.  There really is no need to have a third line centre as good as Kadri when the cost of playing him enough to be worthwhile is taking minutes away from the two superstars.

The bottom line here is that the Leafs are clearly interested in improving their blue line, and they clearly value talent over what hand they shoot with.  Will Slavin or Nurse ever join the Toronto Maple Leafs? Maybe, maybe not.

Either way, a couple interesting names to talk about on a Monday.