The Leafs have been somewhat active in Free Agency this year. We’re now long removed from ex-GM’s Brian Burke’s days of essentially boycotting the start of Free Agency with his famous line “it’s the worst time to make deals in hockey.” Of course, we are also now far removed from his days of the salary cap rising 7-10% each year, which provided cover for the many mistakes he made doing business outside of that period.
However, outside of T.J. Brodie, Kyle Dubas has mostly stuck to signing depth players, Joe Thornton being the newest and biggest—in the literal sense, but not in the financial sense as he signed yesterday at the league minimum salary.
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Joe Thornton signs with the Maple Leafs
Are there more to come? There could still be trades made to clear the logjam of defenceman, and that would open a comfortable amount of cap space to sign a new player, but the pickings from the Free Agent lists are now slim. Who is still out there that the Leafs would or could sign, even with, say, a trade of a defenceman like Justin Holl?
Maybe some out of the box thinking is in order.
Okay hear me out: Nail Yakupov for 4C.
— Katya Knappe (@KatyaKnappe) October 17, 2020
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