The Toronto Maple Leafs are projected to have a little bit of flexibility this offseason and will need to bounce back big time to not make it a wasted summer. Two trades with the Anaheim Ducks can do that for them.
With Mitch Marner and his $10.9 million AAV coming off the books as he is projected to head into free agency, and former captain John Tavares most likely taking a paycut to stay in Toronto (if he even stays), the Maple Leafs have some dollars to play with. And considering that they were embarrassingly knocked out of the postseason yet again, will need to make some solid additions to their roster.
One of their main problems in the playoffs this year was depth scoring. The top players were solid and if they weren't scoring, they weren't letting the other team score against them. The rest of the team? Disappointing.
Here are two trades with the Anaheim Ducks that addresses that need.
Trades
The Leafs need a top-six center, or even just a middle-six center if Tavares returns and can have an equal amount of responsibility offensively. Ryan Strome can do that.
The 31-year-old center might not be the most electrifying player down the middle -- he has had three consecutive 41-point seasons during his three years with the Ducks -- but he should find an improvement in linemates considering his most common partners were Frank Vatrano and Troy Terry. Two perfectly fine wingers but he should see an upgrade in Toronto to bring out a little bit more offense.
He isn't the most strong defensive player either, but with the structure Craig Berube has in place and compared to Greg Cronin's systems and the rest of his Ducks experience being a disaster in their own end, he should see an improvement there as well.
Toronto would be getting a solid middle-six center under contract for the next two seasons, and if no salary is retained, at a low cost of a $5-million AAV cap hit. All that for giving up a player in and out of the lineup and a couple of draft picks that won't be useful to them until their window has closed.
This is the big win-now swing. Trevor Zegras was once heralded as the next-best forward who would take over the hockey world with his ultra-skilled approach to the game. Now, that has gone to the wayside as the Ducks have floundered and hired coaches that hate any player showing off their skill.
The 24-year-old forward has been in and out of trade rumours for over a year now, but this should be something the Leafs look heavily at. He has just one year left on a contract that carries a $5.75-million AAV cap hit, and then he is still a restricted free agent next offseason. If Zegras re-finds his game as a top-six player in Toronto, that would be a bargain.
And really, with the loss of Marner, the Leafs could inject some more skill into the lineup by getting a player with everything Zegras has to offer. Even when not attempting Michigan goals and threading pucks through defenders' legs, he can be a very solid contributor. You don't score 186 points in your first 268 games on a very bad team for no reason.
In exchange, they give up their top prospect Easton Cowan but in reality, if he reaches his ceiling he is just a smaller playmaker on the wing who doesn't have a whole lot of footspeed. He would be great hypothetically, but Toronto needs more certainty and Zegras, while still uncertain how he has recovered from his injury, is still more of a sure thing than Cowan.
It's one of those shrewd moves that the very best teams and Stanley Cup champions pull off multiple times. Toronto has not done that very often or at all. They need to take a swing.