According to Darren Dreger, the Penguins have offered Letang a hair over $7 million a year for 8 years. But it might not be good enough to keep the defenceman in Pittsburgh, and initial rumour mongering has linked Letang to the Leafs.

Although Letang is a very good player, he has no history in a shutdown role, and the Leafs desperately need a strong defensive upgrade beside Dion Phaneuf to get the most out of their captain. That isn't to say Letang can't perform in that role, but when you have to gut your farm system and shell out huge money to get a player, you want to be reasonably sure he's capable of what you need, and not a $60+ million gamble.

A No. 2 defenceman is the biggest priority for the Leafs, even more so than the never-ending search for a No. 1 centre, mainly because Phaneuf didn't have a particularly good year in 2013 and the deficiencies of the top pair were on full display.

In part, Phaneuf's failings were because Randy Carlyle gave him a purely defensive role the likes of which has rarely, if ever, been seen before. To make things worse, half the season he was playing with AHL players. However, Phaneuf is a quality defenceman, he just needs to be surrounded by other quality defencemen so the hardest defensive duties don't fall on his shoulders alone. Try playing huge minutes against John Tavares and the elites of the league with Korbinian Holzer strapped to your back.

Finding a No. 2 defenceman isn't going to be easy for Dave Nonis. Teams are always searching for top-4 defencemen and guys capable of playing 22+ minutes in a shutdown role aren't just sitting around on the waiver wire. Looking around at the No. 2 defencemen in the league, and finding out how their teams acquired them, could provide insight into how Nonis might go about finding a partner for Phaneuf.

Nikolai Kulemin's name has popped up in trade rumours this year, with most of the rumour mongers citing his drop in production as the primary reason. He's now become a "change of scenery" candidate and one the Leafs should allegedly be happy to trade.

After scoring 30 goals in 2010-11, Kulemin has scored 11 goals over his next 102 games. That's not even 9 over 82 games. When a player drops that far, it's hard not to wonder what's gone wrong. How can a player go from a career high to a career low so quickly?

Well, Kulemin's 30-goal year was the outlier, one likely to never be repeated. When you combine his career-high 30-goal season and his career-low 7-goal season that followed, it averages out to 18, right in line with 15-16 goals Kulemin scored his first two seasons. He wasn't as good as he was in 2010-11 and he wasn't as bad as he was in 2011-12.

But Kulemin only has four goals this season, which would total 10 over a full 82-game season. So compared to his early career, not even his outlier season, he has been conspicuously missing from the score sheet.

But Kulemin's lack of output is primarily a perceptual issue. Relative to his role, Kulemin is actually producing at a high level.

An ugly 5-2 drubbing at the hands of a Stanley Cup contender, on the heels of a painful 7-4 loss to the Islanders, and Leafs Nation is out for blood.

Captain Dion Phaneuf is taking the brunt of the criticism after posting a minus-7 over the two games. The Fan 590 didn't take long to incite a reaction from steaming fans, asking whether the captain was a buy-out candidate.

We're taking your #MapleLeafs calls right now on #SN590! Do you think Phaneuf is a buy-out target? Call 416-870-0590, 1-888-666-0590 or *590
— SN 590 The FAN (@FAN590) January 27, 2013

The question doesn't deserve even a moment's thought. Phaneuf is by far the Leafs' best defenceman despite what his plus/minus rating says.

One of Randy Carlyle's major challenges as the Leafs' head coach will be implementing a defensive scheme that somehow cuts down on the massive goals-against totals that have doomed the Leafs for years.

He can start by actually teaching the team about defence, something former coach Ron Wilson felt was unnecessary, apparently. In fact, Wilson didn't teach the Leafs anything about the defensive zone when he was in Toronto, not even where in the rink it was located. Poor Cody Franson was so confused he thought it was in the press box.

To combat the utter ignorance on his roster, Carlyle drew up a map of the defensive zone to help teach the Leafs how to play defence. It wasn't supposed to be leaked to the public, but I found a crumpled up copy in a trash bin after Leafs practice on Thursday. Perhaps it was tossed aside by a certain bald-headed, injury-prone centre on his way down to the minors.

Special thanks to Down Goes Brown for the inspiration for the piece and my friend, Geoff, for his input.

If there's a silver-lining to Jake Gadiner's "concussion", it's that the Leafs are getting a better look at Paul Ranger.

Gardiner left a game on December 8 against Rochester after receiving a blindside hit from Kevin Porter, who was penalized for the hit, and hasn't played since.

It's not every year that the draft is brimming with talent. In 1999, aside from the Sedin twins, the draft was so barren that GMs were better off trading their first-round pick. The best players taken in the first-round, other than the Sedins, were probably Tim Connolly and Martin Havlat, two players so injury-prone teams have never really been able to count on them.

In other years, like 2003, you would have to be stupid not to draft a future cornerstone in the first-round. That year was so deep players like Ryan Kesler, Mike Richards, and Corey Perry went late in the first-round. Of course, that year the Leafs didn't have a first-round pick, thanks to the much complained about trade for Owen Nolan. So failing to find an elite player could have been due to stupidly trading your first-round pick, not just general draft stupidity.

Another year that is proving to be a bonanza is 2008, especially if you were looking for a defenceman. Toronto traded up to take Luke Schenn fifth overall that season, thankfully avoiding selecting someone like Nikita Filatov, but missing out on other game-breaking talents. Schenn has had an up-and-down career so far, but is only 22, an age in which many defencemen are just breaking into the league, whereas Schenn just completed his fourth.

Today's post at The Good Point takes a closer look at the 2008 NHL Entry Draft and compares the three elite defencemen that came out of it.

Success in the NHL came quickly and easily for Dion Phaneuf. Almost immediately upon entering the league, the 9th overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft drew comparisons to both Al MacInnis and Scott Stevens for his big shot and even bigger hits.

In his rookie season, Phaneuf scored 20 goals and 29 assists, firmly entrenching himself as one of the game's brightest young stars.

Phaneuf improved on his point totals in the next two seasons, scoring 50 and 60 points, respectively. That third season also saw Phaneuf nominated for the Norris Trophy with Zdeno Chara and eventual winner Nicklas Lidstrom. That was the beginning of what many thought would be an annual accolade for Phaneuf. The Flames certainly thought so, as they awarded Phaneuf a 6-year deal worth $6.5 million a season.          

Then the shine started to rub away and the Flames shipped Phaneuf to Toronto. Phaneuf hasn't scored anywhere near the level that he did when he was with the Flames, which has left many wondering if he'll ever become the dominant defenceman that everyone once predicted.

In actuality, despite a decline in points, Phaneuf has actually become a far superior defenceman to the one he was in Calgary.

The NHL season starts on Thursday, which indicates my life is close to regaining meaning.

I'm too excited, there's no time for coherent intros. Let's look at the Leafs' forwards, defence, and goaltending, describing them in one word (and then if you're unsatisfied, many words).

Ilya Kovalchuk is the best pure goal scorer in the NHL. That’s a ballsy statement considering the goal-scoring prowess of Alexander Ovechkin. But notice that I used the word pure. Ovechkin isn’t a pure goal scorer because he does a lot more for the Washington Capitals than just score goals. He basically plays like a 3rd line energy player, but just happens to have the talents of an elite goal-scorer.

There are many rumours that suggest the Leafs would love to add Kovalchuk if he makes it to free agency this off-season. Kovalchuk’s goal-scoring abilities are sorely lacking from the Leafs line-up and his addition would instantly make the Leafs a playoff team, but I’m not content with just a playoff team. I want Leafs management to build a team capable of contending for the Stanley Cup. I don’t mind waiting, but I want to see it done right. I don’t think signing Kovalchuk to a ridiculous long-term contract is the answer to the Leafs problems.