Done deal: Toronto Maple Leafs win sweepstakes for Alexander Barabanov

Alexander Barabanov, Toronto Maple LeafsIt’s official: The Toronto Maple Leafs have won the 20+ team sweepstakes for 26-year-old KHL winger Alexander Barabanov after announcing a one-year, entry-level contract on Tuesday morning.

While most fans conduct hockeydb searches when the news breaks on a new signing out of Europe, this is the culmination of literally years of recruitment efforts by the Maple Leafs.

Agent Dan Milstein, who commended the Leafs‘ success with Russian players on the radio the other day and has now agreed to terms with Toronto on three notable KHL free agent clients (Nikita Zaitsev, Ilya Mikheyev, and Alexander Barabanov) in the past four years, mentioned that Mike Babcock…