The first question isn’t: who should the Maple Leafs get on defence. It’s: can they actually acquire anyone?
The answer to that is, as always, it depends. The field is wide open for low-salary depth defence options, of which the Leafs have enough, but the way they’re dropping like flies, maybe they should get one or two more of those in case.
To review, they have:
- Jake Muzzin: $5.625 million on LTIR until at least February, but not for sure out the entire season.
- Morgan Rielly: $7.5 million on LTIR until at least mid-December, a January return seems more probable.