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Leafs at the Deadline

By Steve Jelliman

With a brutal 2nd quarter to the season, the Leafs went from vying for a top half spot in the conference to being several points out of a playoff spot, and Leafs GM Jelliman had seen enough shipping the inconsistent soon to be an RFA Denis Gurianov for a younger but less established RW in Robert Thomas as well as intriguing prospect Alexander Kisakov.   This was soon followed up by a 3-way trade with Boston and Winnipeg which saw Jordan Staal moved out and a future 1st and defenseman Adan Ginning brought in.   Staal has struggled this season and the Leaf Captain was also in the final stages of his contract (and potentially his career) so a move to a team more likely to secure a playoff spot was looked upon as a boon to the classy forward.  No sooner does the team put out the "Players for Sale" sign that the Leafs start to find some life and have got themselves back into the race now just 2 points back from a playoff spot and only 4 points off the divisional lead in an absolutely crammed Atlantic division race.    


When asked if this means Toronto would start looking at adding, Jelliman was non-committal.   "We are playing well right now, but the consistency has been lacking all season.   Maybe the best thing for this team is to let them work through this themselves for the rest of the year."

Moving Staal's contract out does give the team some breathing room cap-wise, and the team has already taken advantage of this by giving Sami Vatanen a long look with solid results and the team can bring players such as Zachary Bolduc, Marco Kasper and UPL up for auditions for next season with the added cap space.

12/1/2023 - 295 words


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