"The Toronto Maple Leafs and general manager Kyle Dubas remain high on KHL players and showed that with a recent signing. Toronto signed KHL free agent forward Alexander Barabanov to a one year deal worth $925k. The organization seems pretty excited, especially head coach Sheldon Keefe as he described Barabanov having "great experience and a great skill set, very high character. He checks a lot of the boxes."Unfortunately for the Leafs, they lost out on another forward they were making a strong push for. Earlier this season Chris Johnston of Sportsnet reported that the Leafs and Montreal Canadiens were in a bit of a bidding war for Konstantin Okulov.The Canadiens were deemed to have the upper hand as they're expecting to bring teammate Alexander Romanov over, however Okulov just wasn't comfortable making the jump for either. KHL insider Igor Eronko reports that Okulov has instead decided to sign a one year extension with CSKA. The 25 year old registered 17 goals and 21 assists in 56 games last year.
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