The Leafs announced the signing of three players yesterday. Mike Zigomanis, a former Buffalo Sabres draftee, who has had NHL stints with Pittsburgh and Carolina before playing with the Marlies briefly last season, 27 year old career minor leaguer Joey Crabb, who has spent most of his career in the Atlanta Thrashers organization and defenseman Danny Richmond, who played with Peoria and Rockford last season.

These signings will provide depth for the AHL Marlies, especially after the departure of veterans like Ben Ondrus from the organization, but they are not the significant moves that fans have been waiting for the last two weeks since the trade for Kris Versteeg and the signings of Colby Armstrong and Brett Lebda.

The Tomas Kaberle deal seems to be in limbo until the Ilya Kovalchuk situation unravels itself and the other dominoes in the league start to tumble.

According to Dave Fuller’s article in today’s Toronto Sun (http://www.torontosun.com/sports/hockey/2010/07/15/14727706.html) , the Leafs are also exploring the options of trading for a veteran sniper:

Simon Gagne, he of the no-trade clause and the $5.25 million contract has been given permission to talk to clubs who might be interested in his services.
The Philadelphia Flyers have decided to eject the somewhat injury-prone left winger in hopes of squeaking under the league salary cap.

While the Leafs, as reported on Thursday, certainly have interest in Gagne, the price along with all the other intangibles (Would he want to play in Toronto? Does Toronto have what it takes to get him, etc.?) may be a problem.

If the premise is correct that the Flyers are looking to unload Gagne for salary cap reasons, then the Leafs would likely not give up anything more than a prospect to acquire him. As for whether Gagne wants to play in Toronto, if he has hopes of another big free agent payday, playing in the center of the hockey world on the left side of the Leafs #1 line with Tyler Bozak and Phil Kessel is a pretty good position to be in with one year remaining before unrestricted free agency.

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