The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off perhaps their best game of the season, with a 4-1 beatdown of the Florida Panthers Tuesday night. The strong run through the holiday season into the new year for Toronto has now reached a 5-0-2 mark.
But that doesn’t mean that GM Brad Treliving isn’t still looking to solve a couple of roster issues. On the blueline, the team will be missing Chris Tanev, perhaps for the rest of the regular season. Additionally, Jake McCabe has been ruled out for a week in the latest injury hit to the team.
The search for a defenseman, preferably a puck-mover, has been ongoing all season, and will certainly continue. In fact, we’re hearing from insider Elliotte Friedman, speaking on Oilers Now, that the Leafs were foiled in their attempts to sign Egor Zamula this past week. He signed instead with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
I think they’re looking at what they can do and if there’s someone they can add. I think they were in on that Zamula kid… but they obviously didn’t get him. I think they poked around on him… (They’re looking for) especially a passer, if there’s someone who can move the puck. That would make sense for them.
Leafs were one of five teams who lost out on Zamula to Columbus
There were reportedly six teams interested in the 25-year-old Zamula after he cleared waivers on Tuesday and had his contract terminated by the Pittsburgh Penguins. They had acquired him in a trade from the Philadelphia Flyers just five days earlier.
The thing with him was, after the frustration of his limited ice time in Philly, he was looking for a place where he would get ample opportunity to strut his stuff. With Troy Stecher rightfully stepping into a top-four spot with the Leafs and the return to the lineup of Brandon Carlo to do the same, Zamula’s role had he come to Toronto would have been more of a depth guy, particularly once McCabe comes back.
There was word at last year’s trade deadline that the Leafs were sniffing around Zamula when the Flyers were first considering moving on from him.
Leafs’ primary focus is on adding a defenseman
Insider Darren Dreger reiterated on TSN’s Insider Trading on Tuesday that defense is certainly where Treliving has his attention when it comes to upgrades.
The primary focus right now is on their blueline. And I think that Leafs fans can appreciate why that would be. The problem that Treliving has right now, like a lot of general managers looking for defense, is that the market is thin. We’re talking about older defence (who are available), perhaps the end of their run, and third pairing guys. So, there hasn’t been a fit that surfaced just yet.
The biggest—but likely most unrealistic—blueline targets that the Leafs have are Rasmus Andersson of the Calgary Flames and the New Jersey Devils’ Dougie Hamilton.
Unless they’re okay with putting the burgeoning Easton Cowan into a deal, the Buds just don’t have the trade assets to pull off a swap for a d-man of the caliber of either of those two.
