Earlier this week, the Maple Leafs and Lightning completed a deal that sent Brian Boyle to Toronto for Byron Froese and a second round draft pick, but according to a report from TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie, the trade could have been a lot bigger.
Lavoie reports that Bolts center Valtteri Filppula nixed a deal that would have seen him join Boyle in Toronto.
Filppula can do that because he has a no-movement clause and a modified no-trade clause that allows him to submit a list of 16 teams he’d be willing to go to. Obviously, the Leafs weren’t one of those teams.
You have to think Leafs head coach Mike Babcock was involved in trying to get Filppula. Babcock and Filppula were together in Detroit from 2007-08 to 2012-13.
The 32-year-old comes with a $5 million cap hit next season, so trading him away would have given the Lightning some nice flexibility this off-season, but it looks like he’ll be sticking around.
On a positive note, he’s already put up more points this year (34 in 59 games) than he had all of last season (31 in 76 games). The only problem is that that doesn’t justify a $5 million cap charge.
With Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Jonathan Drouin all looking for new deals at the end of the season, losing that high salary would have helped them free up some money to bring that trio back.
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