Anaheim Ducks Forward Suddenly Available and Could be an Excellent Fit for the Maple Leafs

As the Leafs tinker with their roster amid the imminent returns of depth pieces, Hakanpaa and Dewar, as well as the impending return of Auston Matthews, Craig Berube continues to look for solutions to solve the issue of inconsistent secondary scoring for the Leafs.

Now that Max Pacioretty appears set to miss a significant amount of time after suffering a lower-body injury on Saturday, the Leafs will need to replace his contributions offensively as well.

The Leafs acquired some trade capital when they sent Timothy Liljegren to the San Jose Sharks at the end of October and some of those assets could be used to add more offense up front.

According to The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta, the Ducks are looking to move some of their pending UFAs, including 30-year-old Frank Vatrano.

Vatrano is coming off of a 37-goal, 60-point campaign last season with the Ducks, but on a struggling Ducks team, he has just 1 goal through 12 games this season and could be acquired for a much lower price if the Leafs act sooner than later.

At a cap hit of $3.65M, the Leafs would need the Ducks and/or a third team to retain salary, but with Calle Jarnkrok out for the foreseeable future with a sports hernia, the Leafs will have a bit of cap space to be able to manipulate their cap situation a bit.

Not only would Vatrano bring an offensive touch to the bottom-six, but he can slot into the top-six if needed and carries the physical style of play that Berube and Brad Treliving prefer, finishing with 156 hits last season.