Trade News: Done Deal; Maple Leafs have successfully sign a contract which is aim at solving the teams defensive challenges
This Leafs season so far has been all about defense – or the lack thereof. Klingberg was the dark omen that crashed and burned, and it’s been a plethora of injuries since then.
Last night, with Liljegren out with an injury, the Leafs played six left defenders for the second night in a row. Pretty early in the Leafs win over Arizona*, Mark Giordano fell head-first into the end boards at a lot of speed. His reaction was very worrying and he didn’t return to the game. Keefe didn’t have an update after the game. But, an hour later Treliving made the trade to acquire Ilya Lyubushkin.
Oh, and Mitch Marner played some RD with the remaining five lefties. After Giordano injury, Marner filled in as a d-man Keefe: “Even before the game started we had a discussion about using him on defence tonight … We were talking about needing a right defenceman” With Liljegren out, Leafs have dressed all-lefty D in consecutive games
The deal breaks down as the Leafs getting Boosh at 75% off, meaning his $2.75 million cap hit has turned into $687,500; less than league minimum. That was the bulk of the cost to Anaheim and Carolina for the second retention for the complimentary defender who’s biggest trait is he holds his stick to the right side.
The Leafs also got the rights to some prospect in Russia from Carolina. Kirill Slepets is a ZLW who I’m not even sure is very zippy. He’s eighth on his KHL team in scoring with half as many points as Yegor Korshkov.
That is… certainly a collection of events. I guess there’s only 365 (ok, 366) days in the year, only so many things can happen on the same day. Also, that home regulation win thing is done now. The Leafs streak without getting shutout, meanwhile, is alive and well.
Lightning-fast goal of the year out of the KHL? I will say I still like Quinton Byfield’s goal from last week. The Canucks and Elias Pettersson are dragging themselves towards a contract extension despite every attempt not to.
The NHLPA’s director is being asked back to Washington. Marty Walsh used to be Secretary of Labor, Boston’s Mayor, and is now being tapped to head the USPS (cheers for Seldo). It doesn’t appear Walsh will need to leave his current job with the NHLPA to make both work.
Listen, it’s not popular but I really wouldn’t mind Holl and Kerfoot back! They are average players, we could use that! The Detroit Red Wings are shopping defensemen Justin Holl on the trade market per Emily Kaplan. Holl was signed during the offseason for a 3 year deal with a $3.4m AAV.
