Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving wants to make trade to improve blueline

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving made it clear when talking to the media on Monday: he wants to improve his team’s blueline.

“It was an area that we wanted to see if we could strengthen regardless,” Treliving said.

John Klingberg was placed on LTIR by the team last week, giving them just under $4 million in extra cap room. However, if Klingberg comes back at any point before the playoffs, they will have to make an additional move. He is currently in New York, seeing a specialist to decide if surgery is necessary for his hip injury.

The Maple Leafs sit in fifth place in the Atlantic Division with a 10-6-3 record. While those numbers don’t suggest much cause for concern, the underlying stats show the team has been too inconsistent this season. The Maple Leafs rank sixth in their division in goal differential at +1.

“From a manager’s perspective, you’re always looking at how you’re playing,” Treliving said. “To me, we’ve been hit and miss. There’s been some inconsistency in our game.”

The team has been rumored to be in trade talks with the Calgary Flames and we could see a deal involving the two teams sooner or later. The Flames have been struggling this year and have a number of pending unrestricted free agents on their back end, none of whom are guaranteed to re-sign with the Flames in the offseason. The Maple Leafs could be interested in making a trade for any of Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin, or Nikita Zadorov. In any potential trade, the Maple Leafs will need to be cap-compliant afterward so the Flames will likely retain some money on the outgoing defenseman.

The Maple Leafs are also trying to sign William Nylander to a long-term contract extension. He could earn somewhere in the $10 million neighborhood. So anything involving keeping a pending UFA defenseman around will need to be built around Nylander’s increased salary.