Toronto Maple Leafs: Examining 4 potential trade deadline targets

Josh Manson

The Anaheim Ducks have made it known that they are willing to take on salary in order to add some assets from teams looking to get out of a cap crunch. Whether or not they are willing to do more than that remains to be seen.

The Ducks have struggled over the past few seasons and can’t afford to have a long drawn out rebuild and have tried to make moves to try and improve but that hasn’t gotten them anywhere.

Anaheim has moved defencemen like Shea Theodore, Sami Vatanen and Brandon Montour in the last few years and you wonder if they would be willing to do the same again this time around.

If that is the case, Josh Manson would be the ideal candidate for the Leafs to try and acquire. The 28-year-old has two more seasons left on his deal at $4.1 million and is the exact style of defenceman the Leafs would want on their right side.

The Leafs would obviously need Anaheim to take back a contract to offset Manson’s salary but the Leafs can offer the Ducks forwards that can help provide some much-needed depth and scoring ability.

Considering Manson is a top-four defenceman the Leafs would probably have to look at moving someone like Andreas Johnsson which is not as big of a loss considering the depth the Leafs have upfront. Another option they can consider is moving Cody Ceci and add some younger prospects but that would likely be a costly option.