After trading Patrick Marleau this past weekend, the Toronto Maple Leafs still have some problems with the salary cap.
If they could unload Nikita Zaitsev, and his $5 million dollar cap-hit, they’d be a lot better off.
The problem – so we’ve been repeatedly told – is that the Leafs are so thin on the blue-line, and so lacking in right-handed defenders, that they can’t afford to just give Zaitsev away.
In my opinion, this is just posturing by the club in an attempt to get a better deal. I fully believe that if they are out-waited, they’ll just give him away.