Injuries are starting to impact the trade chatter around the league. Despite being likely buyers, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be impacted by this too.
Most recently, the Arizona Coyotes saw Jacob Chychrun leave their game with the Boston Bruins injured. His name has been out there routinely this season as a prime trade candidate – certainly he is someone the Toronto Maple Leafs would love to add.
Likewise, the Colorado Avalanche have seen Gabriel Landeskog and Samuel Girard go down injured recently. This will absolutely impact any trade acquisitions they plan to make. In all likelihood it puts them as the absolute front-runner on Claude Giroux.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, are dealing with their own pair of key injuries; namely those to goaltender Jack Campbell and defenseman Jake Muzzin.
Trade deadline approach for the Toronto Maple Leafs
Without the injuries to Jack Campbell and Jake Muzzin, there’s every chance that the team may have looked to add yet another offensive weapon.
However, with the defensive and goaltending woes and an offence that seems to be able to out-score it’s way out of most situations, that now feels like a very unlikely plan.
In fact, in recent weeks, the rumour mill has been heating up around adding another goaltender to the mix; something you might hardly have envisaged early in the year when Campbell’s name was being thrown around in Olympic and Vezina conversations.
However, with his injury and the average (at best) form of Petr Mrazek, there’s every reason to imagine the Maple Leafs might need to duck into the trade market to find further goaltending support.
As far as defensemen go; the Toronto Maple Leafs have had their name linked with any number of blue-line options such as Ben Chiarot and Hampus Lindholm.
The Leafs have also been linked to Jacob Chychrun and John Klingberg; neither of which is likely worth pursuing anymore. Chychrun is out with a lower-body injury – we all saw how well acquiring injured players worked out last year with Riley Nash and Nick Foligno.
Klingberg isn’t injured, but teammate Miro Heiskanen is out for an indefinite time with mononucleosis; hence it’ll be unlikely the Dallas Stars, while still a shot at making the playoffs, will want to weaken their blue-line.
It’d be quite reasonable to scrub both names off the prospective trade acquisitions list for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In fact, the chatter right now seems to focus on Mark Giordano or Marc-Andre Fleury; both of which would be great additions though very likely pricey ones.
Injuries will no doubt continue to hit even as we approach the trade deadline. The best hope has to be that none of those injuries hit the current Toronto Maple Leafs roster.