The Maple Leafs likely to improve their blue line by the deadline
Luke Fox of Sportsnet: (mailbag) 33-year-old defenseman T.J. Brodie is entering the final year of his deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs at a $5 million cap hit. The Maple Leafs need more players that play like Brodie and not less of them.
GM Brad Treliving may want to re-make their blue line before the trade deadline but that may not mean to trade Brodie.
In Calgary they have three defensemen entering the final year of their contracts – Noah Hanifin, Nikita Zadorov and Chris Tanev – and can’t see how new GM Craig Conroy would want to lose any of them for nothing. Any one of Hanifin, Zadorov or Tanev would improve the Leafs blue line.
Though he is eligible for a contract extension on January 1st, believe the Maple Leafs and Tyler Bertuzzi will let the season play out before making any major commitments.
Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun: Brad Treliving took care of a bunch of offseason to-do’s but he didn’t get William Nylander extension (neither side is too concerned) and his blue line may not look like a Stanley Cup contending group.
Jake Muzzin is expected to be LTIR’d when the starts. The makeup of the Leafs current line won’t make things difficult physically for their opposition. There is plenty of time for GM Brad Treliving to make some tweaks before the trade deadline.
No sense of urgency for the Leafs to get a Wiliam Nylander extension done
Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic: Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving on where negotiations are now with William Nylander, who is entering the final year of his contract.
“I’m not going to get into the play-by-play of it other than to say he’s a very good player and you always want to keep the good players. And he’s told me he wants to be in Toronto. That’s the most important thing. If there’s a desire on both sides, then you should be able to come to an agreement.
“But these things take time. They’re all their own independent deals, and they have their own ebbs and flows.”
Treliving when asked if the contract talks have hit a wall.
“No, no, no, we’ll talk here prior to getting the season started and see where we’re at. But we still have a year.”
Nylander’s agent said they are open to getting a deal done. At one point this summer there was the sense that if a deal didn’t get done, that he could be traded, but sense is now that they are will to play it out.