Leafs reportedly working on multi-player trade

More recently, the chatter seems to have turned to Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin, but according to The Leafs Nation's Nick Alberga, there may be another player on Toronto's radar in Calgary - a forward - and Alberga says that the Leafs may actually be pushing for a F/D package.

Alberga revealed the news during the first intermission of last night's Stars/Leafs game and didn't expand too much on the rumour, other than to tell fans to speculate away.

A quick look at the Flames' CapFriendly page shows that there aren't many pending UFA forwards in Calgary, other than veteran center Kevin Rooney. Since Rooney is not really a needle-mover, if the Leafs are in the market for a forward out of Calgary, they'll likely be pursuing someone with term.

Some of the more intriguing options are the newly-acquired Andrei Kuzmenko ($5.5M AAV), who came over from Vancouver in the Elias Lindholm deal, Toronto native Andrew Mangiapane ($5.8M AAV), and veteran winger Blake Coleman ($4.9M AAV). Both Kuzmenko and Mangiapane have 1 year left on their existing deals beyond this year, while Coleman has 3 seasons remaining after this one.

One name who has obviously come up in speculation is Nazem Kadri, who was drafted 7th overall by the Leafs back in 2009. Kadri was very fond of his time in Toronto and still adores the fans to this day, but it remains to be seen whether he'd even consider waving his NMC to return to where it all started and the organization that gave up on him in 2019. Kadri has 5 years remaining on his deal after this one at a whopping $7M per season.

If this report rings true, regardless of who the Leafs target in Calgary, it will either require some serious salary retention or the Leafs will have to make a move to free up some salary before pulling the trigger on a deal with the Flames as they have just $34,999 in available cap space at the moment with a full 23-man roster.