New Deal for Brock Nelson Creates Complications for the Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are very likely on the cusp of losing Mitch Marner and have not yet submitted a formal contract offer to former captain John Tavares.

It's no secret that the Maple Leafs are hurting for centres at the moment. Initially, it was believed that the Leafs would take a run at a number of centres in the UFA market come July 1st. Two names that stood out as strong possibilities were Sam Bennett and Brock Nelson.

Unfortunately for the Leafs, Brock Nelson has put pen to paper on a 3-year extension with the Colorado Avalanche, which carries a $7.5M cap hit.

Equally unfortunate for the Leafs, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman also recently reported that he believes that Bennett is likely to stay put in Florida.

With Bennett and Nelson both off the board, the top centres available in free agency this summer (aside from the aforementioned Tavares) are Claude Giroux, Matt Duchene and Mikael Granlund.

Of these 3 players, Duchene might make the most sense for the Leafs, but his 82-point season might inflate his value a little too much for such a move to make sense.

The Leafs could opt to bring in Giroux or Granlund on a 1-year deal to buy themselves a year and set themselves up for an opportunity to take a run at Connor McDavid -- though that's probably a pipe dream at this point, with the Oilers going on back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Final.

This summer is shaping up to be quite the difficult and underwhelming off-season for the Leafs.