Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are resting on what could perhaps be a huge benefit to them moving forward. This team obviously plays well enough to win and be a playoff team without Auston Matthews…..and Matthews is definitely not well enough to play here.

By putting him on LTIR, the Maple Leafs would open up a remarkable amount of money to spend on the cap at the trade deadline. No team has ever had an extra $13.25 million going into the trade deadline. That can fill some holes.

The monkey wrench here, of course, is that Matthews wants to play in the Four Nations tournament. But people I talk with are really starting to believe that’s less and less likely .

Some players the Leafs could add at the deadline make this scenario very tempting…

1. Ivan Provorov
2. Marcus Pettersson
3. Joel Armia
4. David Savard
5. Jacob Trouba
6. Taylor Hall
7. Andrei Kuzmenko

That’s just a few…. if I’m the Maple Leafs, I’d definitely jump on this. Las Vegas and Tampa have taken advantage of this all the way to Stanley Cup victories.

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