‘GREAT OPPORTUNITY’: Maple Leafs acquire D-man Mark Giordano from Seattle Kraken

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As a 10-year-old Toronto hockey fan, Mark Giordano agonized when Doug Gilmour and the Maple Leafs were stopped in the 1993 conference final.

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Now, he has a chance to help bring his hometown some badly needed playoff joy. Certainly his family of him in North York is pumped he has returned, while general manager Kyle Dubas hopes the 2019 Norris Trophy winner can shore up a blueline many think incapable of surviving very long in the May tournament.

Giordano and forward Colin Blackwell came from the Seattle Kraken on Sunday in a trade for two second-round picks. this year and next, plus a third rounder in 2024. While Dubas ended speculation of whom he’d pluck from the dwindling number of available defensemen, he also sent defenseman Travis Dermott to the Vancouver Canucks for a third round pick.

Giordano hopes to play Wednesday at Scotiabank Arena against the New Jersey Devils.

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“Now that I’m able to get back to Toronto, it’s a great opportunity to be part of something special,” he said on a Zoom call from Seattle. “Everyone is excited. I’ve only gone through 10 to 20 text messages, there’s a ton more and I’m not sure I’ll get through them all before the end of the month.”

TJ Brodie was among the first on his contact list, the two long-time Calgary Flames a tandem up to Giordano winning the Norris. Brodie came to Toronto as a free agent; a season later Giordano was claimed by the Kraken in the expansion draft. They’ll pick up 50% of his salary from him on an expiring deal with a cap hit of $6.75 million US.

“Seattle treated me great to the end. (GM Ron Francis) knew I was from Toronto and this would be a great fit for me.

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“I feel great, just played my 1,000th game. Most 38-year-olds would’ve played more by now, but I started later (underdrafted). I work to keep up my speed. I’m excited to get back in a game. sitting out the last two games waiting for the trade deadline wasn’t fun.”

With his preferred No. 5 long retired by the Leafs, he inquired if 55 is open. The six-foot Giordano played Tier II with North York and Brampton, then two years with Owen Sound of the OHL before a long climb up the Flames’ chain. He has 532 career points and seven in 23 playoff games.

He becomes the fourth former winner of the Norris to become a Leaf, behind Brian Leetch, Pierre Pilote and Red Kelly, and the second captain of another team acquired on successive deadlines after Nick Foligno was traded from Columbus.

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Dermott played 273 regular season and playoff games for Toronto after being selected 34th overall in 2015. But so many similar style defensemen, led by Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren on the current roster, made him expendable.

Dermott’s post-game comments Saturday in Nashville had an air of goodbye to them, though the writing on the wall was a week earlier when he was scratched from the outdoor game in Hamilton.

With 17 points in 39 Kraken games, the 5-foot-9 Blackwell is from a late blooming seventh round class of the 2015 draft, that includes Ryan Dzingel, Matthew Peca and others. A bad concussion cost him nearly two years of playing time at Harvard where he was Alex Kerfoot’s teammate.

“I had to find my way up through PTOs, but once I could solidify myself, I could prove to be a Swiss army knife and play a lot of different positions. I have a lot left in the tank and having had it taken away from me, I want to make it last.”

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