Casey Mittlestadt
Despite how hard it would be to learn how to spell his name, the Maple Leafs should be heavily pursuing the Buffalo Sabres centre.
Once again, the Sabres are going to miss the playoffs, and once again, they will be looking to the future in order to hopefully one day not be a complete atrocity of a hockey team.
Until then, their best players will continue to show up in trade rumours for other teams.
Mittlestadt is 25 and a former 8th overall pick.
He's having his best season to date, and has 44 points in 54 games. He is offensively gifted and defensively competant.
There is no way a player like this should be available, and I don't even know that he is, but the Sabres are a bad team and poorly run. They probably do want to keep Mittlestadt, but it's worth finding out what he'd cost.
He only makes $2.5 million and is a pending RFA. He would be a massive upgrade over Max Domi at 3C and basically give the Leafs the coveted 3 x #1 centre setup that is almost impossible to defend.
They haven't been the same since losing Ryan O'Reilly and though this a different type of player, the theory is the same - have three star centres and watch other teams scramble to defend.
I would love to see a situation where the Leafs add a solid 3C and move Domi to 4C and play him with McMann and Steeves on an offenive oriented fourth line.
The Leafs top priortity should be a goalie, and secondy they should be going for a defenseman, but I would still like to see them add another centre.