Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Should be Deadline Buyers

If I have properly gauged the mood of ‘Leafs Nation’ this is not going to be a very popular take on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

To be honest, I think a good part of this team’s fans are delusional.  This delusion is caused by years of failure. Years of teams making short-term moves that didn’t pan out.

A team known for it’s lack of organizational patience has now conditioned it’s fans to be too patient.  It’s OK.  It’s a normal reaction.  But the people who insist the Toronto Maple Leafs are still in rebuild and need to be patient don’t understand the realities of a league with a salary cap.

I’m going to lay out for you why the Leafs need to be buyers at this year’s trade deadline. Why they need to do what they can to make sure they ice the best team possible for attempting to win the Cup this spring.

Now, before you skip the rest and rush out to tweet me about how stupid I am, keep this in mind: I do not recommend trading any young roster players. I do not recommend making any short-term moves that are just for this year.

Salary Cap

Every time someone says you ‘can’t rush the rebuild’ I want to smash my head into the nearest wall.  They think rebuilding is this linear process that takes a really long time.

I guess it usually does, but the Leafs are an exception for two reasons.

1) They got lucky in an insane way. The Leafs drafted three franchise players in a row (Nylander, Marner, Matthews) one of which is a generational talent on par with Crosby, McDavid and Ovechkin.

2) They somehow managed to compliment these rookies with three above average first-line worthy players who are in their primes:  James Van Riemsdyk, Jake Gardiner and Nazem Kadri.   Also, they have an elite defensive forward in Komarov.  Plus, a solid #1 goalie in Frederik Andersen.

Now, when you combine these two exceptions to the rebuilding rules, with the realities of a salary cap, you see the Leafs have solid reasoning to be buyers right now.  The fact is the Salary Cap NHL favors teams with star rookies because they are cheap.  Matthews is as good as players making $9 million dollar cap hits, and he essentially doesn’t even have one.

Add in Marner and Nylander also being on entry-level contracts, and the players in their prime being all on team friendly deals, and the Leafs somehow have one of the best rosters in the NHL with 15 million in cap space.

That is essentially a once-in-a-life-time situation.  The Leafs will have three years in which they can take advantage of this major loophole.  (Because ECLs are three-years long).

The thing is, while the two years after this will clearly be their best window for winning (not their only one, just their best) there is no point in wasting this year.

Weaknesses + Strengths

The Leafs aren’t a perfect team.  They are probably better than you think though.  Their ability to blow leads and lose in shoot-outs is, mathematically speaking, almost entirely just bad luck. So ignore them.

The team could use a power-forward, a top-line defensive dman, some bottom-pairing and fourth-line depth, but otherwise it’s pretty good.

They lead the NHL in special-teams. The Leafs are the second-best goal-scoring team.  They are top-ten at 5v5 puck-possession.

If you took away the logos and just looked at raw stats, you might be surprised to see that, statistically, the Leafs are a team ranked between 5th and 10th best in the NHL.

They  play in the weakest division in hockey.  The Toronto Maple Leafs could reasonably see the teams who are better then them beat the crap out of each other in divisional playoff match-ups. Thanks to the NHL’s insane playoff formatting.

To Sum Up

The Toronto Maple Leafs should be buyers at the trade deadline.

This is because:

• They are statistically a top 10 team.
• Have a good probability of favorable playoff match-ups
• Currently 1.5 games out of 1st in Atlantic w/ 22 to go.
• Have 15+ million in cap-space
• Enjoy three all-star quality players on ECL deals
• Have a solid mix of players in the primes + rookies
• Even if they don’t win this year (they probably won’t) the experience of a run will be very helpful in the next two years when they’ll have their biggest window for winning.

The Toronto Maple Leafs really are in a crazy situation right now.  Maybe they aren’t this healthy next year. Maybe their division is better.  They’ll have less cap space next year…while there are tons of reasons to be patient, the fact is, the Leafs are in a situation that may never come along again.

They don’t need to make trades for rental players, or go ‘all-in’ but they can still be buyers in a way that doesn’t hurt them going forward. If they do that, they might get lucky and win a Stanley Cup while 90% of their fan base still insists they’re in a rebuild.