Toronto Maple Leafs: Avoiding Knee-Jerk Reactions

The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off a disappointing playoff performance in Game 7

The Toronto Maple Leafs season has been a huge success, all things considered, and so the team must avoid making knee-jerk reactions to their loss – such as trading William Nylander.

It’s no secret that Toronto needs an upgrade on defense, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of Nylander. Michael Traikos,  of the National Post, apparently never having heard of Taylor Hall, wrote last week how management needs to consider trading the 21-year-old for a top-pairing defenseman; emphasizing on the word top.

Nylander is a first-line winger; which means if Toronto were to explore trading him, then the return should result in a top-pairing defenseman. Well, these kind defensemen don’t grow on trees and rarely do teams decide to move on from them.

Over the past three seasons, there are two instances where teams dealt a young forward to address their issues on defense.

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In 2016, the Nashville Predators and Columbus Blue Jackets made a blockbuster one-for-one deal; Ryan Johansen went to Nashville while Seth Jones went to Columbus.  This is a terribly lopsided trade in favor of the Blue Jackets, as Seth Jones appears to be on his way to being a top 5-10 blue-liner, but Nashville (who still has arguably the best top four D in hockey) was dealing from a position of unusual strength. Good luck finding another similar situation.

The other instance came when the Edmonton Oilers traded MVP candidate Taylor Hall for a decent mid-pairing defenseman in what can only be characterized as one of the worst trades of all-time.

The Options Aren’t Good

Trading Nylander is just stupid.  This is a player who could win an Art Ross Trophy.  He’s potentially a franchise player and it almost never pays to trade these kinds of players.

It’s also worth pointing out that Nylander is a versatile player who may yet become an elite centre.

Sure, if someone wants to give you Drew Doughty, Noah Hanifin, Hampus Lindholm or Oliver Ekman-Larsson it might be worth thinking about, but since its safe to assume those players aren’t available, this idea is a non-starter.

Beyond what you can get for Nylander, it doesn’t even make sense to jump straight to trading him when the team is loaded with young talent – Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnson could be valuable trade chips.  The Leafs have all their draft picks, they have a ton of cap space, so why does everyone jump straight to trading a player who, if not for the improbable luck of getting Matthews and Marner, would be the best player the Leafs have drafted in 30 odd years.

Next: Should the Leafs Pursue Tavares?

The Leafs defense isn’t that bad.  Jake Gardiner, Morgan Rielly, Nikita Zaitsev and Travis Dermott represent a strong foundation.  Timothy Liljegren is a strong prospect.  There’s no need to rush it here.