St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs on the Verge of Making a Trade? GM Spotted at the Game

After whomping the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-1 on Thursday night, it seems that St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong wants to get another look at the Maple Leafs roster. Toronto has a few players waiting to return and not a lot of money to work with, so it looks like Armstrong could be thinking of fixing some holes in his team.

He must have been impressed with some of the Maple Leafs, as the long-time St. Louis executive was seen spotted at the Maple Leafs/Bruins game in Boston on Saturday night:

Toronto has a few options they could use as trade pieces in order to clear up some cap space. David Kampf is a popular choice, as Toronto has Connor Dewar, Jani Hakanpaa, and Fraser Minten close to a return and either Dewar or Minten easily slot in where Kampf was.

Timothy Liljegren is also an attractive option for the Blues, and with his name circulating through trade rumors in the past few weeks, and could slide in either in Justin Faulk or Scott Perunovich's position, and with Jani Hakanpaa's return inevitable; he's probably the first one out. Either man would save Toronto over $2M in cap as well as open up future money and get their unmanageable contracts off the books.

It seems like things are starting to pick up for the Maple Leafs, at least in terms of trade talks. Jim Nill, GM of the Dallas Stars and Conference rivals of the Blues has already been scouting Maple Leafs players, and Toronto has recently also been linked to the Utah Hockey Club; so it seems teams are kicking the wheels to see if they can start a discussion. Toronto needs to make a decision though, as head coach Craig Berube only has a few roster spots he can play with, and paying two players over $5M combined for a lack of production is not productive.

Trade talks are going to start picking up even more for the Toronto Maple Leafs and GM Brad Treliving needs to make a move soon, especially if Toronto doesn't turn things around. This first and foremost is a business, and if the Maple Leafs don't get themselves out of the red, it could spell disaster for the future.