Nick Kypreos has a feeling that the Leafs are in a bidding war regarding Kris Russell:

The hold up on Russell is if clubs like @CanadiensMTL @MapleLeafs @VanCanucks go 6 yrs on ballpark 5m aav. #SigningSeason

— Nick Kypreos (@RealKyper) July 1, 2016

Fighting with the Canadiens and Canucks, considering their track records lately, seems like a bad idea. Russell had a less than stellar outing with the Dallas Stars for their playoff run, and doesn’t really seem like a play the Leafs should be chasing.

Kypreos (despite his issues as an analyst) is a legitimate insider sometimes, so while I’m taking this with grains of salt, I’m confident this conversation is happening.

However, it was updated shortly after that the Canucks are out, from Russell’s agent through a news site: 

The agent for Kris Russell tells me that the #Canucks are not in the mix.

— NEWS 1130 Sports (@NEWS1130Sports) July 1, 2016

Looking at the HERO chart from Own The Puck, we can see Russell is a less than fancy-stats-friendly acquisition:

His possession numbers are off the charts, in that they’re so bad they don’t show up. His relative CD/60 is so bad he’s past the minimum limit for data to appear in the visual. That’s really, really not good.

It will certainly be interesting to see where this ends up, but I’m certainly hoping the Canadiens are the ones that win this war.