Maple Leafs and Patrick Marleau ready to part ways

During Headlines, the panel discussed the respective futures of both Patrick Marleau with the Maple Leafs and Dion Phaneuf with the Los Angeles Kings. They also touched on Erik Karlsson and whether or not he will continue with the San Jose Sharks.

Could one of the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ veteran players be heading back to the Western Conference?

Patrick Marleau, who spent the first 19 years of his NHL career with the San Jose Sharks, is said to be eyeing a return to a western team and has notified the Maple Leafs of his wishes.

“It sounds like Marleau and the Leafs are set to part ways,” said Nick Kypreos during the ‘Headlines’ segment of Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. “The family is going to move back to San Jose. Patrick Marleau has made it clear to the Toronto Maple Leafs that he’d like to get closer to his family once again, which means moving to the west coast area.”

There are a few teams who are supposedly in the conversation to land the veteran forward, including one Californian outfit.

“Some of the teams that are in the mix – I’m told – are Arizona, Colorado [and] the Los Angeles Kings,” Kypreos continued. “Now everybody’s wondering ‘why the Los Angeles Kings?’ … There’d be no question that a type of deal that would have to involve taking on that contract would be, maybe, taking on a current roster player that the Leafs would have to give up, and maybe even retaining as much as maybe $1.5, $2 million.”

Marleau, 39, has played in every regular-season and playoff game for the Maple Leafs since joining the team prior to the 2017-18 campaign.

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