Insider says the trade market is beginning to buzz and the Leafs have no shortage of potential options to replace Jake Muzzin
The Leafs have a very obvious hole to fill in their lineup with Jake Muzzin sidelined for what is likely at least the rest of this season. Earlier in the week, DFO's Frank Seravalli reported that there were a handful of candidates that could work well for the Leafs in the trade market, including Vladislav Gavrikov, Carson Soucy and John Klingberg. However, on Wednesday, he revealed a few other potentially interesting names.
According to Seravalli, the Leafs could look beyond players like Gavrikov, Soucy and Klingberg to players like one of Dmitry Orlov or Nick Jensen in Washington or potentially even 27-year-old Matt Roy in Los Angeles. He even Matt Dumba of the Minnesota Wild as a name to potentially keep an eye on.
Of the names that Seravalli had listed on Wednesday, Dumba is certainly one that stands out. He is fairly similar to Muzzin, stylistically speaking, in that he likes to hit and get involved in the offensive zone. Both players have produced similarly in recent years, but Dumba is more of a shooting threat and has a better shooting percentage, nearly twice as high as Muzzin's, and is more helpful on the power play, whereas Muzzin is a more of a penalty killing presence.
The reason why Dumba's name is such an intriguing one is that he's a right-shot defenseman and his name has been in the rumour mill for two years running, which means that he is available. The Wild are still struggling through 3 more seasons of $12.7M-$14.7M in dead cap space for each of the next 3 seasons thanks to the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and could benefit from moving Dumba's $6M cap hit.
Dumba is a UFA at the conclusion of this season, so it would be a short-term commitment by the Leafs and if the trial is a successful one, they could look to extend him this summer. If not, no harm, no foul and he can walk as a free agent next summer and get paid somewhere else.
The downside here is that Dumba, like Muzzin, has missed significant time in recent years. In fact, he has not played a full 82-game season since 2017-18. There are risks there for sure, but a player like Dumba could help drum up some offense for the Buds, give them another experienced body on the right side and help replace some of the physicality that they're missing with Muzzin out of the lineup.
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 16 | 183 ANSWERS Insider says the trade market is beginning to buzz and the Leafs have no shortage of potential options to replace Jake Muzzin Should the Leafs take a run at trading for Matt Dumba? | ||
| Yes | 109 | 59.6 % |
| No | 74 | 40.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
