Toronto Maple Leafs: Can Treliving Land These Defenseman

Who Could the Leafs Add?

MacKenzie Weegar - Calgary Flames
A longer solution to fix the backend is to acquire Hanifin's teammate MacKenzei Weegar. The former Florida Panther is in year one of an eight-year deal that carries a salary cap hit of $6.25 Million per season.

Like Hanifin, Weegar would immediately help the top four and the now veteran defenseman has averaged over 22-minutes for the past four seasons recording 133-points in his past 252 games while getting limited time on the powerplay.

The only way Flames GM Craig Conroy looks to move on from Weegar is if he is looking to make a drastic change in the organization as he would have just Rasmus Andersson signed past this season.

If Treliving were to acquire Weegar, it would be beneficial to get the Flames to retain a portion of the salary, similar to what the Maple Leafs traded Phil Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins during their remodel.

To Toronto: MacKenzie Weegar (15% salary retention)
To Calgary: T.J. Brodie, Nick Robertson, Conor Timmins, 2026 1st Round Pick

Even though Weeger is in the first year of a long deal, the Flames may be more open to trading him that you'd think. The fact is, they clearly need to embark on a long rebuild, and Weegar will be long past his prime by the time the Flames are ready to compete again.

Both the player and team expected them to be a contender when the contract was signed, and that clearly isn't happening, so it's not impossible they'd consider moving him.