The Toronto Maple Leafs Can Still Sign 3x Cheap Potential Stars

Matt Dumba

A big right handed defenseman who can hit, and provide offense?

Sign me up.

Why the Toronto Maple Leafs pursued John Klingberg when Matt Dumba was available is just flat-out stupid.

Dumba is a better player in every way.

He’s also younger and is the kind of player you want to have on your team to rub off on your younger players.

With Tyler Bertuzzi and Max Domi now in the room, the Leafs should be desperate for a real leader, and with their blue-line seeing major decline (Klingberg is worse than anyone they played last year, Brodie is declining, Gio looks done, Holl is gone and hasn’t been replaced with anyone as good as he is, even though he wasn’t all that good).

Matt Dumba probably thought he’d get a raise on his $6 million and be signed well into his thirties, but NHL teams seem to have smartened up slightly.

Dumba hit 50 points five years ago and looked like a superstar, but his totals have declined each year to the point where he had under 20 in 79 games last year.

For $6 million big ones, teams aren’t biting.

But remember when Luke Schenn played well for three weeks and parlayed that into a three year deal despite being a league minimum player on a one-year contract for several years?

And remember when the Toronto Maple Leafs used that situation to their advantage to get Tyler Bertuzzi on a sweetheart one-year deal?

They need to do the same thing with Dumba.  Move Brodie out and then give Dumba a single year to show what can do in Toronto for $2 million.

The Toronto Maple Leafs could potentially get Dumba, Kane and Puljujarvi for what they are currently giving Brodie.   By buying out Matt Murray and then giving away Jarnkrok and Lafferty they can be cap compliant and have a team with much more upside than they have today.