The Toronto Maple Leafs completed their Development Camp on Saturday, and before settling into the usual summer hiatus, GM Brad Treliving will likely tinker around the edges, trying to add another scoring forward as he did with the acquisition of winger Matias Maccelli from Utah. The Leafs may dip into the trade market, but according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on his 32 Thoughts podcast, Toronto might be looking at a free agent signing to plug the gap.
One player that the Leafs are in on is Jack Roslovic, who played with Auston Matthews during their time at the US National Development Program. Friedman indicated that the 28-year-old is a good fit to play on right side as he is a right-hand shot. Toronto was in on winger Andrew Mangiapane before he signed with Edmonton last week, but apparently he was not willing to wait while the Leafs cleared out some salary (names like David Kampf and Calle Jarnkrok were mentioned).
Roslovic signed a one-year, $2.8 million contract with Carolina, where he matched his career-high with 22 goals and appears to be patiently waiting for some teams to sort out their roster situations. Toronto may be looking for players willing to take a short-term deal. If he is looking for anything more than a two-year contract, it is likely that the Leafs would not be interested in exhausting a sizable chunk of his available cap space, but if he is willing to take a one-year contract in the neighborhood of what he signed for in Carolina last summer, that is something Treliving might bite at.
Other Rumors
Another rumor circulating is that the Leafs could be looking for flip a defenseman for a forward. One name that popped up last week was the recently acquired Brandon Carlo, who is under team control for another two years at $3.485 million. This would make little sense, since Toronto has been pursuing a right-handed blueliner of Carlo’s quality for years and he is only 28 years old.
Friedman indicated that there were rumors of a defenseman-for-forward swap being possible when the Leafs inquired about Buffalo’s JJ Peterka, but the Sabres opted for a two-for-one swap with Utah, acquiring Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan for Peterka.
The rumor of the Leafs having interest in former Leaf Nazem Kadri will not go away, to the point that there are rumors of a Morgan Rielly for Kadri swap. There are only two problems with this.
A) Calgary would have to trade with Toronto, and there have been indications since Treliving left the Flames two years ago that GM Craig Conroy and the club’s hierarchy would rather deal with their archrival, Edmonton, or Satan than with their former GM. The Leafs reportedly had a better offer on the table when they tried to acquire Chris Tanev before he was dealt to Dallas, but the Flames would rather have traded with a team in their own conference than with Treliving and Toronto.
B) Who is running the Leafs power play if they trade Rielly? Up until last season, the 31-year-old was an effective distributor of the puck on the point during the man advantage; he just is not a scoring threat without a big shot. Now that Mitch Marner is gone, it logically would go back to Rielly.
Oh….and one more thing….there is that pesky no-movement clause that Rielly has, and it has been reported by everyone from Pierre LeBrun to Chris Johnston than he is not interested in waiving it. So unless he has a change of heart, it is not going to happen.
