Report: Deadline day acquisition set to debut for the Maple Leafs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs fan base will get their first chance to see their organizations newest acquisition when the Maple Leafs head down across the border to face off against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night. 

According to a breaking news report from Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman the Maple Leafs will be injecting veteran forward Nicholas Petan into the line up this evening for his Toronto Maple Leafs debut. It will be a big moment for both the player himself as well as for the Maple Leafs albeit for entirely different reasons in both cases. 

For Petan it will be just the second time he debuts in the National Hockey League with a new team having been drafted by the team that eventually traded him to Toronto, the Winnipeg Jets. Petan was selected in the second round of the 2013 National Hockey League entry Draft but the fit between him and the Jets never truly worked out. Since being selected in that draft Petan has appeared in just over 100 career NHL games, including only just 13 this season, in spite of being an extremely productive player at the American Hockey League level. 

For example in just 52 games with the Manitoba Moose, the AHL affiliate team of the Winnipeg Jets organization, this season Petan has 15 goals and 37 assists for a total of 52 points, a point per game pace. The Leafs clearly see more than what the Jets have in Petan which would explain their decision to acquire him at the deadline. This will also be an important debut for general manager Kyle Dubas who saw the trade to acquire Petan be his really only significant move on deadline day. Petan will not be a world beater but if he can give the Leafs a little boost for the remainder of the regular season and the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs it will have been more than worth it for Dubas who only gave up a struggling Par Lindholm in the deal. 

Petan is likely being viewed as a potential replacement for Leafs forward Frederik Gauthier who has largely failed to produce offensively in spite of being a reliable forward in his own end this season.

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