Brodin Signing Sparks Dumba to Toronto Maple Leafs Rumours

The Minnesota Wild signed Jonas Brodin to a seven-year extension, which immediately ramped up speculation that the Toronto Maple Leafs would have interest in Matt Dumba.

It feels like we’ve been talking about Matt Dumba rumours to the Toronto Maple Leafs for his entire career, but now they’re getting serious. As I talked about last week in my “Hypothetical Trade of the Day,” the right-handed defenseman from Saskatchewan would be a great fit in the blue-and-white.

Starting in the 2021-22 season, including Dumba, the Wild now have four defenseman making $6M or more. Brodin’s new deal doesn’t kick in for another year, but it’s not like he’s on a bargain contract already, as he’s currently making $4.16M.

The Wild are roughly $13M under the salary cap but they still have to sign six more players this off-season. However, that’s not the biggest concern for the Wild. Minnesota is much more worried about the NHL Expansion Draft that will take place after the 2020-21 season.

Under the Expansion rules, a team can keep seven forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender or eight skaters (either forward/defenseman) and one goaltender. Not only that, but players with a “No Movement” clause must be protected if the player does not waive that clause.

The Wild currently have three defenseman (Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon and Brodin) that have a ‘No Movement’ clause and the expectation would be that none of them would waive it. As a result, that leaves Dumba as the lone man out, unless the Wild wanted to keep four defenseman and four forwards.

Obviously the team would prefer seven forwards and three defenseman, because if they have to keep four defenseman, they’d now be exposing three more forwards in the Expansion Draft.

Dumba Would Be a Great Fit in Toronto

In an article posted on Sportsnet.ca this week, they quoted Elliotte Friedman speaking about the Dumba situation and what Minnesota may want in a package for him.

"“Look, Minnesota wants a centre…Brodin and Dumba’s names were out there last year at the beginning of the season when Minnesota didn’t start very well. And the one thing I heard — and when I spoke to Bill Guerin about it he didn’t deny it, though he wasn’t giving much information — is that if he was trading one of those guys he was getting a centre.”"

The Wild currently only have three forwards (one centre) signed for the 2021-22 season, so it’s clear they need help up-front. As I outlined in a hypothetical trade earlier this week, a package which includes Andreas Johnsson ($3.4M) and Alex Kerfoot ($3.5M) may be enough to get Dumba to Toronto.

In terms of dollars, Minnesota would only be taking on $900K more, which is fine for them, while the Leafs would be getting the right-shot defenseman they need. Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas has always been in favour of trading for a player who has term left on his contract and Dumba fits that perfectly, as he’s signed for three more seasons.

A $6M contract may look too rich for the Leafs current roster, but with Rasmus Sandin ($894K), Timothy Liljegren ($863K), Mikko Lehtonen ($925K) and Alex Barabanov all set to join the team on league-minimum contracts, it shouldn’t be a problem.

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to trade for Matt Dumba.