Rumor: Teams keeping an eye on Kasperi Kapanen of the Maple Leafs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are headed towards a pretty big logjam at the forward position and there now appears to be a widely held belief that the Maple Leafs will likely have to make a trade or risk losing one of their players for nothing to the waiver wire. 

The Maple Leafs have been giving some players bigger roles in the wake of injuries to players like Mitch Marner, Trevor Moree and Andreas Johnsson this season and many of those players have stepped up to the plate and demonstrated that they are fully capable of conducting themselves at the National Hockey League level. Now with both the aforementioned Moore and Johnsson set to return by the time the Christmas break has passed the Leafs will have some tough decision to make moving forward.

They could waive players like Dmytro Timashov, Frederik Gauthier or the aforementioned Trevor Moore but after losing Nick Shore to waivers earlier this season general manager Kyle Dubas may want to exercise his options before going that route again. The Athletic's James Mirtle believes that the Leafs could look to pull the trigger on a trade, one that would potentially bolster the depth on their blue line in the process. Specifically, Mirtle reports that opposing teams have been keeping a watchful eye on Leafs forward Kasperi Kapanen throughout this entire process.

From Mirtle:

Kapanen, in particular, is someone a lot of teams are keeping an eye on. You look at how talent-poor a team like Edmonton is on the wing, and you can see why.

Moving Kapanen would not only solve the Maple Leafs log jam at the forward position, or at the very least alleviate some of the pressure there, but it would also clear up valuable cap space that could be used to help shore up the obvious problems the Leafs have on the blue line. Mirtle mentioned Edmonton's potential need for a winger and he believes that they also have a defenseman on their roster that would fit the needs of the Maple Leafs in Adam Larsson.

Again from Mirtle:

A Kapanen-for-a-D deal might make sense here, if these standout performances down the lineup continue. I wondered watching the game Saturday night if someone like Adam Larsson might, at some point, be a fit, given Edmonton has room to subtract on the back end.

Larsson is a big piece of the Oilers blue line and that organization gave up a big piece in Taylor Hall to acquire him, would the Oilers be willing to give him up in a trade to bolster their depth on the wing?