We’re going, going, back, back, to Cali, Cali.

You may have noticed that the Kings have already #blessed the Leafs roster with Jake Muzzin. Hoooooooooooooo Doggy, do I love me some Jake Muzzin. That kind of happiness is something we should want to build off of, and perhaps the best way to do that is to continue to trade with the Kings.

Let’s start with the player who has been rumoured to the Leafs, and that’s Kyle Clifford. The 28 year old winger at first glance seems like a pricey addition to the fourth line, and player that only seems to be brought up because he was formerly represented by Kyle Dubas. In reality, Kyle Clifford has had solid a solid CF% (52.8), with an even more impressive relative CF of 5.4, while primarily starting in the defensive zone. These are also numbers he’s consistently demonstrated for the past three seasons, and at $1.6M for the next two years, he’s not a bank breaker, but rather another small drop in the bucket for next season’s difficult cap situation.

If the Leafs are in fact interested in Clifford, the ideal course of action would be allowing the Kings to get slightly younger and trying to offload Connor Brown for him, at a marginally higher cap hit, but that’s making a huge leap that the Kings who are also interested in shedding salary would be interested in Brown.

Additionally if the Kings are in fact in a sell off mode, some tire kicking on Tyler Toffoli might be worthwhile, but in a salary cap world it’s difficult to find other fits between the Leafs and Kings beyond possibly Toffoli or possibly Alec Martinez.

With Carl Hagelin traded to the Capitals, the Kings rentals are pretty much gone. The only other rental option available seems to be Peter Budaj, who might hold some appeal as an extra layer of Marlies goaltending, but really, the Marlies can get by with McAdam and Kaskisuo. Budaj isn’t an upgrade on Hutchinson or Sparks.

Well, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what they want based on the Muzzin trade. They want young close to NHL ready players, prospects, draft picks, and to shed some salary. If we were to apply the same principles of the Muzzin trade to Tyler Toffoli, well, you probably wind up with Bobby Cappuccino special, and start the deal with Bracco and a 2nd. I don’t know if they’d want Brown though, so perhaps they are more of a Bracco, Der-Arguchintsev, and a 2nd type team. Anyway, I don’t think there is any further match here since the Leafs can’t keep on adding salary.

Well, if the Kings are going to keep on shipping out defensemen, they’ll eventually need to bring one in. Martinez is a name the Kings were considering moving, and perhaps even the Leafs and Kings can pull off a Zaitsev for Martinez deal, with Toronto sweetening the pot for them. For the Leafs to take back Kovalchuk, Dustin Brown, or Dion Phaneuf there wouldn’t be much or any relief if they bought them out, so it’s hard to find a garbage in/ garbage out scenario that works.

It’s entirely going to come down to whether or not the Leafs and Kings can get something done on Kyle Clifford, as rumoured. I can’t see the Leafs wanting to give up too much here and the names I’d throw around if I was Kyle Dubas would be Connor Brown, Freddie Gauthier, Justin Holl, and Igor Ozhiganov if they want to get something done.

That being said, I’m full prepared to be disappointed on Kyle Clifford deal, if one is coming. If it doesn’t materialize, I don’t think we hear any more about the Leafs and Kings until the summer, when cap space shuffling is revisited.