On the Toronto Maple Leafs …
Craig Custance of ESPN: Source saying the Maple Leafs are a team that defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk could be interested in signing a long-term deal with.
The Leafs could obviously wait until the offseason to take a shot at signing or they could try to trade for him before the deadline, help them gain some playoff experience this year, and try to extend him while he’s there.
Scott Stinson in the National Post: So the Maple Leafs look at moving some of their young forwards for a defenseman?
Trading James van Riemsdyk may not be terribly painful, moving someone like William Nylander “is far less defensible.” Nylanders name has entered the trade rumors likely because he’s their third best rookie behind Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Nylander is also fourth in rookie scoring this year.
Hard to see a scenario that makes sense to break up their current group. Their young talented forwards will only become more valuable as they gain more experience. They will able to add blueline over the next few years when they have a little more cap flexibility. It’s too early make a big move.
“The Leafs have played one-half season of the kind of hockey that management must have envisioned when president Brendan Shanahan took a blowtorch to the front office and started turning over the roster two-plus years ago. Their rookie crop, as good as it is, could yet hit a wall and slump toward the kind of results that were widely expected of them this year: good, fun to watch, but a little too young to contend. And if they do manage to hang around, and make the playoffs with all the rookies still on board, all the better. The postseason is a crapshoot anyway; there’s little guarantee that a big trade would necessarily make a difference in a best-of-seven series.”
Alec Brownscombe of Maple Leafs Hot Stove: Darren Dreger on TSN Insider Trading on the Toronto Maple Leafs 2016 2nd round pick Carl Grundstrom being a Maple Leaf sooner than later.
“He could, as early as next season. Preliminary talks underway. That would mean he would come over and play with the Toronto Maple Leafs or, worst case, the Toronto Marlies. Again, they’re just beginning to talk about it, and there is going to be a decision that has to be made by Grundstrom. Maybe he opts to stay in Sweden. But he’s having a heck of a year in Frolunda. Many compare him to, say, a Patric Hornqvist of the Pittsburgh Penguins, or for the throwbacks — the old group like us — maybe Claude Lemieux back in his day when he was ravaging the league with the Colorado Avalanche.”
