The Toronto Maple Leafs and T.J. Brodie are Made for Each Other

Brodie has been a target of the Toronto Maple Leafs for a while.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have finally gotten their defenseman. They signed T.J. Brodie to a four year, $20 million deal for him to play on the right side of the blue line. As everyone knew, defense was an area of need for the Leafs and Kyle Dubas finally addressed it.

With the Calgary Flames, his former team, he was paired with veteran Mark Giordano who has a Norris trophy to his name. Despite the fact the Brodie shoots left, he has played mostly on the right side in the NHL.

Now, Brodie who hails from Chatham, Ontario, comes to Toronto to play for his hometown team. Brodie is the newest member of the Maple Leafs but he could have been on the the team earlier.

Brodie and the Toronto Maple Leafs

Last offseason, Dubas was looking to trade Nazem Kadri for defensive help. One of his targets was Brodie, and the Leafs and Flames had a deal in place to swap the two players but needed approval from Kadri has he had Calgary on his 10 team no trade list.

Ultimately, Kadri didn’t want to go to Calgary for some reason and the trade was nixed. Kadri was then shipped off to Colorado along with Calle Rosen and a third round pick in the 2020 draft for Tyson Barrie, Alexander Kerfoot and a sixth round pick in the 2020 draft as well.

Things tend to work out for the best, as the Leafs now have Brodie anyways, and Alex Kerfoot is a lot better than Mark Jankowski, who also would have come to Toronto in the trade.

As Dubas knew that Brodie was a free agent at the end of the 2019-20 season, he must have laid his eyes on him to bring him to Toronto. At the end, it all worked out for him as Dubas got his guy in Brodie.

Getting Brodie though came with a consequence. The Leafs are currently over the salary cap, by about $1.1 million but teams are allowed to be no more than 10% over the cap during the offseason. It remains to be seen how Dubas will free up space to be within the cap once the season starts, although the team has a ton of flexibility owing to the fact that they have several contracts that won’t be difficult to move if they desire to.

The TJ Brodie significantly improves the Leafs and puts them among the biggest winners in this year’s free agency.