Trade rumors heat up with reports of Tyson Barrie being unhappy in Toronto.

There is all kinds of trouble going on in the land of the Toronto Maple Leafs right now and unfortunately there are signs that things may get even worse before they get better. Just last night we heard some bombshell rumors regarding the potential firing of the Toronto Maple Leafs head coach, Mike Babcock, from two of the National Hockey League's most well respected insiders and now there is talk that one of Babcock's players may be hoping for a way out of town.

Those rumors surround newly acquired defenseman Tyson Barrie, a player that was just recently acquired over the summer by general manager Kyle Dubas and one that simply has not seen a good fit for himself within the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman touched on the rumors surrounding Barrie over the weekend and, although he made it very clear that Barrie had not yet formally requested a trade from the Leafs, there was no doubt based on the comments made by Friedman that Barrie is simply not happy being a Maple Leaf.

"Now the other name that has come up a lot this week has been Tyson Barrie, there has been a lot of chatter around him," said Friedman on Saturday evening. "He has not asked for a trade, however I think there is an understanding that so far it hasn't worked and that this is a very important year from him because he's a free agent. I think we would all recognize how he would feel about that. I'm hearing Toronto has received calls on him.... and so far they have rejected the idea, they don't want to trade him. We'll see where it goes over the next month, but I do think that there is a recognition that this can not continue for him."

Friedman did make it clear that Barrie has not yet formally requested a trade, however it does sound an awful lot like if things do not turn around very quickly here that this is indeed what will come to pass. As Friedman stated Barrie is set to earn arguably the biggest contract of his NHL career this summer and if he feels the Maple Leafs are preventing him from showing his true value to the rest of the league he could very understandably want to be moved somewhere else. 

Combine this with the rumors surrounding head coach Mike Babcock and there is now a tremendous amount of pressure on the shoulders of general manager Kyle Dubas. The pitchforks have not come out yet from the fans in Toronto as we are still relatively early in the 2019 - 2020 NHL regular season, but we may not be very far off from that becoming a reality for Dubas, his head coach, and the Maple Leafs organization as a whole here if things do not get back on track very, very quickly. Following the comments made by Friedman on Saturday night the Maple Leafs were dealt an embarrassing loss, the Leafs fell by a margin of 6 - 1. at the hands of a Pittsburgh Penguins team that has currently been decimated by injuries.