Maple Leafs Almost Signed $50 Million Former Panthers Player

Former Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour recently appeared as a guest on "The Leafs Forever" podcast and revealed that he had conversations with the Maple Leafs this past offseason when he was a free agent. 

Ultimately, he chose to sign with the Seattle Kraken on a seven-year, $50 million contract, with an average annual value of $7.143 million.

“Yeah, no, we thought about it," Montour said. "We spoke to them a couple times. Again, it happened so quick, speaking to a lot of teams. I mean, when we ended up with Seattle, we just felt like that was the right fit for us, but definitely there were some conversations."

Montour grew up near Brantford, Ontario — just an hour and 45 minutes from Toronto. Despite being raised so close to the city, he admitted he didn’t grow up a Maple Leafs fan, adding that the extra pull to play there wasn’t in him the way it was for Lorentz.

"Thought about the possibility of how it would work close to home," Montour added. "It might have been different, too. I mean, I was never a Leafs fan growing up, so it wasn't one of those things where I was like, I wanted to go play, or that would have been a huge thing for me."

Montour went on to say he believes his "skill set" and the way he and the Leafs play would have been a good fit. But at the end of the day, "family" and "other things" played a role in his decision.

"But I just think my skill set and the way I play and how that team plays, I think I could help tremendously, so that was the big thing for me," Montour stated. 

"But, I mean, business aside, family things, we had other things as well, It didn't work out. We're excited to obviously be in Seattle. Unfortunately, we're not playing, but one day we'll be there."

In addition to signing Ekman-Larsson on the backend last offseason, Toronto ended up signing Chris Tanev. The Leafs also acquired Brandon Carlo from the Boston Bruins at this season's NHL trade deadline.