Montour to the Leafs a real possibility, but there are 3 reasons to avoid him

The Leafs have been linked to all kinds of pending free agent defencemen like Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev, Brett Pesce and Brandon Montour. Of the four, Montour is the one they should stay away from most, and for at least three key reasons.

The first, and most obvious, is the fact that his next projected contract is for seven years and just north of $7.7M per season. That alone is far too much for a 29-year old offensive defenseman. Not only that, but having more than $15M tied up in two defencemen at 30 years or older seems almost as bad as having $45-50M tied up in four forwards.

Secondly, Montour is far too similar to Morgan Reilly in what he would bring to the lineup. Both are good at a lot of things but not exceptional at any one or two things.

Finally, Montour has had only one good season offensively, surpassing the 70-point threshold in 2022-23. Across all nine of his other NHL seasons, he has cracked the 25-point mark just once, making last season's 57-point campaign a "blip in the radar", so to speak.

The Leafs do not need another Rielly, but they do need someone like Zadorov or Pesce in their top-four in order to make their blueline much better and have a shot at going further in the playoffs.

Source: Hockey DB
Montour has had one productive offensive season