NEWSLETTER
With 10 days separating us from the March 21 deadline, things will begin to pick up steam in the coming days, but for now, it’s still essentially a game of wait and see. Speaking of seeing, you might have noticed that there were a couple of injuries to goaltenders that we should monitor in the coming days.
We’ll start north of the border in Toronto, where the Maple Leafs learned on Thursday that they would be without starting goaltender Jack Campbell, who will miss at least two weeks with a rib injury. Campbell has been solid this season with a 24-9-4 record and a 2.65 GAA, but his backup Peter Mrázek has left the Leafs looking for outside help between the pipes.
Maple Leafs No. 1 goaltender Jack Campbell out at least two weeks with rib injuryhttps://t.co/DNJCOQHRxX
— CP24 (@CP24) March 10, 2022
Mrázek has a 3.43 GAA in 16 games this season, a drastic drop off from his career years with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2017-2019 when he posted a stellar GAA’s of 2.39 and 2.69 for the Canes. A timeshare between a healthy Campbell (eventually) and Fleury would be ideal for the Maple Leafs, but again, the ball is in Marc-André Fleury’s court.
We don’t know who is on Fleury’s 10-team no-trade list, but the list of teams will span beyond that group if Kyle Davidson opts to honor the handshake agreement that Fleury won’t be traded to a team that he doesn’t want to play for. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reported Thursday he believes the Leafs and Capitals specifically are not on Fleury’s preferred team list, so while they seem like a perfect partner for Davidson and the Hawks, this whole discussion might be an exercise in futility.
If Fleury isn’t interested in heading north of the border to Toronto, might a reunion with Vegas be in the cards? Last night, Robin Lehner was sent home by the Golden Knights to have a lower-body injury further evaluated. Frank Seravalli reported this week that in addition to the lower-body issue, Lehner is dealing with a torn labrum that might cause him to go under the knife at some point.
There’s a need there for Vegas at this point, but I’m not sure Fleury would want to go back to Vegas after they dumped him this summer without even telling the veteran netminder that he was being traded. If you remember, Fleury found out that he was traded to the Blackhawks on Twitter, which upset Fleury.
Edmonton and Washington have been teams mentioned as potential fits for the defending Vezina Trophy winner. Still, I don’t see the long-time Pittsburgh Penguin giving a trade to Washington a green light, leaving just Edmonton as a possible partner of the teams that we know to be logical destinations.
Maybe Fleury doesn’t get traded after all. Kyle Davidson said in a recent Blackhawks Talk Podcast with Pat Boyle and Charlie Roumeliotis that if Fleury ends up here at the end of the year, the Blackhawks “will be a better team because of it.”
We shall see if that’s the case.
So, then who’s getting traded?
With a Fleury trade looking more and more like something that might not be happening, and the other players of value seemingly untouchable, despite Kyle Davidson saying last week that no one was untouchable. I appreciate the tact that Davidson is operating with, and I’ll reserve judgment for the time being, but the silence around the big guys on the roster makes me wonder where they plan to operate over the next 10 days.
Dominik Kubalík seems like a sure bet to be traded at this point. When he arrived in Chicago, the 26-year-old winger looked like a piece of the future, logging a 30-goal season during the 2019-20 season with four goals and four assists in the NHL’s bubble playoffs. Since then, Kubalík has failed to replicate that production, and at this point, the impending RFA doesn’t seem to be in the Blackhawks plans.
Calvin de Haan is probably one skate out the door at this point. He’s a gritty veteran defenseman on an expiring deal, the prototypical deadline rental type of acquisition that someone will surely come calling for in the next 10 days.
Henrik Borgström and Erik Gustafsson have been healthy scratched almost every game of late, but neither of them has much trade value at all. They’ll probably be gone, but they won’t bring back much of a return.
Ryan Carpenter is also a guy who would fit the needs of Nashville or another team looking for a fourth-line centerman who can provide some defensive-minded veteran presence on the bottom line. Carpenter has postseason experience, and he is also on an expiring deal.
