TORONTO — Fans of a certain vintage will remember Nick Foligno’s father, Mike, scoring an overtime goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs during their unexpected run to the conference final in 1993.
Kyle Dubas and his staff saw first-hand how well Nick performed for the Columbus Blue Jackets while eliminating the Leafs from the NHL bubble in August.
And now that son is following father — green-lighting a trade to Toronto on Sunday night — everyone involved is hoping some history will be repeated … and made.
Foligno promises to be the Leafs’ big addition ahead of this trade deadline, arriving at the cost of a late first-round draft pick and two fourth-round selections. The price was so high because Dubas involved a third-party broker in San Jose to acquire the defensive-minded winger at 25 per cent of his remaining cap hit.
What it didn’t do is remove anyone from the roster of the NHL’s third-best team by points percentage, nor any of the organization’s top prospects.
Dubas has spent the better part of a month searching out a specific upgrade — a left-winger to skate alongside John Tavares and William Nylander on the second line. It loomed as a big hole while a makeshift list of internal candidates cycled through the open spot and the trio failed to gain traction, particularly because the team’s top-heavy roster is designed to overwhelm opponents.
Foligno is an interesting choice.
He brings strong defensive metrics, kills penalties and isn’t a high-end finisher or play-driver like many of his new teammates. At 33 he’s a veteran of more than 1,000 NHL games who is still willing to play with an edge and even drop the gloves occasionally. And like Joe Thornton, Jason Spezza and Wayne Simmonds, he’s a high-character player joining the Leafs hoping to get his hands on the Stanley Cup for the first time.
[radioclip id=5107227]This continues an evolution of the roster that started after last summer’s five-game loss to Columbus. The Leafs scored just three even-strength goals in that series and Foligno soaked up big defensive minutes against Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Zach Hyman and Tavares at 5-on-5 without being on the ice for one against.
The Blue Jackets held an edge in shots, 41-40, and a 4-0 lead in goals during Foligno’s 80 minutes of ice time in that series.
Squeezed by a tight cap position and with a desire to change the makeup of his group, Dubas dealt away middle-six forwards Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson in the off-season while going bargain shopping up front. It was a rebalancing of how the money was spent but left the Leafs looking to replace some of what was lost ahead of Monday’s deadline.
“In the summer we had to move out some forwards that were good forwards for us in order to add on the back end and thus we feel like that’s an area where we may want to look at a little bit more,” Dubas told reporters last month.
He unloaded a meaningful number of futures to complete this trade — a sign of how heavily Foligno was coveted in the marketplace. But the Leafs are in a win-now frame of mind and they needed Columbus to retain 50 per cent of Foligno’s $5.5-million cap hit before the Sharks retained an additional 50 per cent.
Adding a player like Foligno for $1.375-million on the cap came at a premium because you’d never be able to do it through free agency.
It also left the Leafs with a little bit of extra wiggle room to pursue more depth in goal or on the blue line before 3 p.m. ET on Monday.
[radioclip id=5107239]Barring something completely unforeseen, this was Dubas’s big swing. The 2021 first-round pick he sent to Columbus is likely to fall somewhere between 25th and 31st overall in an unpredictable draft where many prospects have barely played, and the fourth-rounders sent to the Blue Jackets and Sharks are lottery tickets he can afford to part with while trying to get his group over the top.
Foligno is a pending unrestricted free agent who is likely to head straight back to Columbus in July, so his impact on the Leafs will be measured by the 10 or so regular-season games he plays after entering Canada and serving a seven-day quarantine and whatever happens in the playoffs.
Given the current financial climate, he was exactly what the Leafs were looking for.
“Usually you’d put a premium on getting a player that has future years [under contract],” said Dubas. “It’s a little bit more complex this year knowing that very likely it’s going to be at $81.5[-million] again, the cap.
“So it’s a rare time where probably a rental is the better fit.”
Foligno is a known quantity in these parts and he’s got a chance to add to the story.
