Getty The Toronto Maple Leafs might pounce and trade for Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad.
The Toronto Maple Leafs might make large changes across all franchise levels during a pivotal 2024-25 offseason.
The Leafs already fired former coach Sheldon Keefe and hired Craig Berube. They are exploring all scenarios regarding Mitch Marner’s future with the franchise and must address a few projected roster openings in the summer.
Reinforcing the defense corps is sitting high on Toronto’s to-do list for the offseason, and Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun speculated the Leafs might stumble upon an elite defenseman if all stars align.
“The Leafs’ priority is to improve goaltending and defence. How do you get better on defence? Sometimes you have to be lucky,” Simmons wrote on June 2.
Simmons proceeded to explain his dream scenario, one that involves the Stanley Cup finalists Florida Panthers and could end with a top defenseman in Toronto.
“Florida wants to re-sign Montour who is a pending free agent, as is the 50-goal scorer Sam Reinhart,” Simmons wrote. “The thinking is, the Panthers will look to trade veteran Aaron Ekblad at the end of the season and use his money to keep Montour. Reinhart may sign a tax-friendly deal brought to you by the state of Florida.”
In the eyes of Simmons, the Panthers won’t have enough money (and cap room) to pay their two most talented pending free agents (Montour and Reinhart) so they will need to find a way to create cap space.
The columnist speculates the Panthers could end up moving top-pair defenseman Aaron Ekblad in a trade, and he implies Toronto should try to, at least, explore a trade for the veteran blueliner.
Simmons’ scenario looks solid in a vacuum and could make sense for both organizations upon further review.
Would Trading Aaron Ekblad Help Panthers & Leafs?
The Leafs are loaded with offensive players under contract (their world-renowned “Core Four” featuring William Nylander, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Marner) but they need to bolster the blue line.
PuckPedia projects the Panthers to have $20.8 million in cap space entering July 1. That figure, however, only includes 13 of the mandatory 23 players to be under contract by the start of the season.
That’s a lot of room, but the Panthers will have to re-sign a lot of the players that have carried them through the playoffs into the finals.
That group includes Montour and Reinhart. According to Chris Johnston’s free-agent big board rankings at The Athletic, Reinhart is the best upcoming free agent while Montour ranks no. 6 in his list.
According to Josh Wegman of The Score, Evolving-Hockey projects Reinhart to sign “an eight-year deal with a $11.13-million cap hit if he stays with Florida.” Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic reported a projected deal of “three or four years at around $6.5 million to $7.0 million” for Montour.
Add those two contracts up, and Florida already has lost around $18 of their $20.8 million in cap space by just bringing back two of the 10 players they need to get under contract ahead of the 2024-25 season.
According to PuckPedia, the Panthers would open $7.5 million by trading Ekblad away. Ekblad, it should be noted, has a modified No-Trade Clause in his contract next season, the last one of the eight-year deal he signed in 2017. Consequently, the defenseman needs to exclude the Leafs from that list if this scenario is to become a reality.
Leafs Could Pounce & Take Advantage of Florida’s Cap Situation
Simmons praised Florida’s asset management referencing the Panthers’ savvy acquisitions of defensemen Gustav Forsling and Montour in the past.
“Florida claimed Gustav Forsling off waivers from Carolina. He’s turned out great. They traded a third-round pick to get Brandon Montour from Buffalo,” Simmons wrote. “Those are two top-four defencemen coming at a very inexpensive price.”
The Leafs acquired two defensemen Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin ahead of the March 8, 2024, trade deadline. They helped the team but didn’t play to the level of either Montour or Forsling in Florida.
Now, entering the 2024-25 offseason, both are expected to test the free-agent market rendering their acquisitions not very valuable.
Aaron Ekblad flings one home from distance for his first goal of the season, 1-0 Panthers!
Ekblad only played 51 games in 2024, scoring 18 points (4 goals, 14 assists). Both numbers career-lows except for the 2021 season when he logged just 35 appearances.
Ekblad racked up 38 points in 71 games in 2023 following a career-high production of 57 points in 61 games in 2022.
According to StatHead, Morgan Rielly is the only defenseman in the Leafs roster to average 0.50-plus points per game in each of the past four seasons.
That alone speaks to volumes about the need for Toronto to improve their defense if they want to build a true contender.