The Toronto Maple Leafs are a team that will be fascinating to watch in free agency and as it turns out, there is a winger from Finland who may command attention.
As for Rantanen, he may not re-sign with the Carolina Hurricanes and according to Elliotte Friedman, Toronto is one of the teams looking to pounce.
"Teams will make room for this guy. If they have a feeling that he's going to come to them, the New York Rangers, Toronto, it won't just be the teams with a lot of cap room. It'll be teams (saying), like, 'Okay, if I have to move a mountain to get Mikko Rantanen, we're going to try to do it."
If the Leafs were to somehow acquire Rantanen, they would need to give up Mitch Marner.
On Spittin Chiclets, Paul Bissonnette talked about this, noting that the Leafs would probably be better off moving on from Marner if his playoff performance isn't up to par.
"Let's say playoffs didn't go that positive for the Toronto Maple Leafs," Bissonnette said on Spittin' Chiclets. "And maybe you get a similar type of performance out of Marner that you saw last year where we can get into the age-old argument, like he wasn't a liability, per se. But, he definitely wasn't regular-season Mitch. So if they were to move on from Mitch Marner and not re-sign him, I would definitely go after Rantanen. I would overpay him to do so."
Rantanen and Marner are very similar players, although the former has much more playoff success.
Either way, it is clear that general manager Brad Treliving has some huge decisions to make once July 1st comes around.