Maple Leafs seek upgrade in all 3 positions in their lineup

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas seemed confident last week when he made it seem like his team was not going to acquire more goaltending help ahead of the NHL Trade Deadline on March 21.

“We’ve got two guys that have been good goaltenders,” he recently explained. “I mean, Jack played at all-star level this year, Peter Mrazek’s played almost played 300 games in net or nearing that and he’s been a good goaltender in his career.”

“I don’t think goaltending was the issue in the last game and I think we tend to get a little bit game-to-game in this marketplace and I’m not concerned about either one of them.”

But that was before Jack Campbell suffered a rib injury and now with the netminder likely to miss two weeks of action and Mrazek struggling at the Stadium Series, the plan appears to have change.

There was a sense that Toronto’s focus was on defence, however, Chris Johnston revealed on last night’s edition of Insider Trading on TSN that all three positions need upgrades:

“Toronto’s interest there is a reminder every day is a new day, because it was just a week and a half ago that Kyle Dubas said to the reporters that he felt that he just [had] room for one move at the deadline, to add one player and I don’t believe that’s any longer the case. And look, a lot has played out for the Leafs in the last 10 days, obviously Jack Campbell has gone with injury, they’ve had some trouble at that position and my sources suggest the Leafs are still looking at upgrades at all three positions in their lineup. To make any of this money work of course, they’re going to have to trade someone off their roster if they do make multiple additions, but that does seem to be at least a possibility here with six days to the deadline.”

But then again, it could have changed after last night’s win over the Dallas Stars. Rookie Erik Källgren got his first victory, a shutout, in his first NHL start. He made 35 saves.

Dubas has very few days left to make the decision for an upgrade in between the pipes.