Very few, if any, players around the NHL are hated more by the Toronto Maple Leafs and their fans than Radko Gudas.

From his battles while playing for the rival Florida Panthers, to yelling in Joseph Woll’s face after a series-winning goal in 2023, to last year’s knee-on-knee hit that ended Auston Matthews’ season, there’s no love lost with Gudas.

Because of that, it came as a major surprise to the hockey world to see Kevin Weekes report on Thursday that the Maple Leafs were among the teams in the mix to sign Gudas as a UFA. That naturally caused a stir, but according to Dave McCarthy, it sounds like the mutual interest between the team and the player is real.

McCarthy wrote in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter):

“Checked in with pending UFA Radko Gudas as it relates to his interest in playing in Toronto if Maple Leafs express interest in the event he reaches free agency on July 1. He told me, “I am open to anything.” @KevinWeekes reported Leafs / Panthers as potential fits,”

The 36-year-old Gudas is, as mentioned, poised to hit free agency having just finished the final year of the three-year, $12 million contract he signed with the Anaheim Ducks in 2023.

It remains to be seen whether the Maple Leafs’ signing of Darren Raddysh would take them out of the running for the rugged right-shot blueliner. That said, Morgan Rielly and Brandon Carlo have both surfaced — and continue to surface — in trade rumors, so Gudas could still be a possibility.

New GM John Chayka has made it a priority to shake up his blue line, and bringing in the “enemy” Gudas, along with already adding Raddysh and Emil Andrae, would certainly accomplish that.

Next: Full Details of Darren Raddysh’s Maple Leafs Contract Revealed