Blackhawks have low-cost opportunity to acquire disgruntled Maple Leafs forward
Photo credit: Steven Ellis/The Nation Network
The Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs have been trade partners before, and with their great start to the year, they could add a great bottom-six forward for a value price from their Original Six cousins.
General Manager of the Kyle Davidson can do better with the bottom six. The goal is to strive to improve upon what you've done before, and with this disgruntled Maple Leafs forward, it could be a reality.
Forward David Kampf has been sent down to the AHL to play with the Toronto Marlies. That is, until he failed to report to his new team and was suspended without pay.
Kampf's failure to report to the Marlies' home ice has put Brad Treliving in a bind, as he feels like he deserves a spot in the NHL.
It looks like he is going to force a trade, and for Kyle Davidson, that could mean improving the 3rd or 4th-line with Kampf, who is a proven depth forward in the league. Last season, he played 59 games with the Maple Leafs and scored 13 points (5-8).
The Chicago Blackhawks Could Take Advantage of the Inopportune Toronto Maple Leafs situations
With Brad Treliving's failure to trade him before, and his inability to move him for less than, say, a 4th-round pick (hypothetically, David Pagnotta mentioned a 7th-round pick), he held onto Kampf longer than he should've.
Treliving has been looking around for a while. The sense that I've gotten is that he hasn't really wanted to just give these guys away. He hasn't wanted to just take a seventh-round pick and call it a day. He's wanted some decent type of asset coming back, for whatever the reason. I think in this situation, because it's gotten this ugly, maybe that's the route they take. They can trade him for whatever, get a sixth-round pick or something like that and call it.
It's another unforced error on Treliving's part, who has set the bar high for a return for David Kampf, and now the Czech winger is rebelling instead of playing reps for another team in the NHL.
The Blackhawks aren't unfamiliar territory for Kampf, as he began his professional career in 2017-18 with the Rockford IceHogs and played here up until 2021 as a Blackhawk.
This could be a perfect landing spot for the center.
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