Yesterday, Toronto Maple Leafs acquired forward Denis Malgin from Florida in exchange for Mason Marchment.
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t been getting much from the bottom half of their lineup, so they’ve traded for yet another small, skilled forward who has more talent than most teams put on the fourth line.
It may not be a major trade, but Malgin will most likely play for the Leafs.
So let’s break it down.
Mason Marchment
He has been in the Leafs organization for some time as a reclamation project and this year he has played four games with the big club.
There was a point in Marchment’s career where there was a chance he would never be an NHL player, remember he was not drafted. The Leafs and their development staff have done an excellent job of helping him get up to par, specifically his skating with Barb Underhill.
Marchment is 6’4, 201lbs and is known for being a heavy grinder type player. Marchment is already 24 and will be turning 25 in March. In his four game NHL stint with the Leafs this season, Marchment hasn’t been effective at all, not showing the ability to do anything of impact.
Alex Hobson of EditorInLeaf broke down Marchment’s game more in-depth here.
The fact is, the Leafs just traded a non-NHL player for an NHL player, so at the very lest, this is a good bet.
Denis Malgin
Denis Malgin, on the other hand, is a player who has been up and down in the AHL/NHL since the 2016-2017 season.
Malgin has somewhat shown an ability to played on the fourth line at the NHL level, where Marchment has not shown any ability to do that yet.
The highest level of optimism for the Toronto Maple Leafs hrtr is the fact that Malgin is two years younger than Marchment. He turned 23 this past January.
Regarding Malgin’s size, he is the opposite of Marchment. At 5’9, 176lbs he is among the smaller players in the NHL.
The Leafs prioritize intelligence and skill, and by all accounts, those are Malgin’s strengths.
Despite his size, Malgin is the superior player in terms of overall skill and talent. He has shown this by being able to be more of a regular lineup player while being a lot younger than Marchment.
Here is how Malgin fares in terms of the analytics in his short NHL career so far:
"Denis Malgin"
Player card from @JFresh1999.
These cards are a great overall piece of data that outlines a player’s ability to isolate the player’s impact by taking the even-strength offense and defense with the additional powerplay and penalty kill data. The data accounts for multiple factors, such as, quality of competition, quality of teammates, score effects, offensive zone stars and many more.
You can find @JFresh’s patron page here.
When examining Malgin’s card, you can tell that his impact is nothing special, but in a league were teams routinely play talentless grinders on their fourth lines, the Leafs are looking to get an advantage in skill.
Obviously there is an upside to him with the skill that he has and given he is only 23. I doubt if Marchment were to play the whole season his player card would have looked any better.
Another crucial circumstance to point out about Malgin is he was Auston Matthews teammate in Zurich when Matthews was 17 while Malgin was 18.
Also, this trade is similar to the trade years ago when the Leafs traded Greg Mckegg for Zach Hyman. I doubt the trade turns out as positive as the last one did, but there’s more upside for the Toronto Maple Leafs than the Panthers as far as this trade goes given what we currently know.
All in all this trade seems like a clear win for the Toronto Maple Leafs. However, I doubt this trade has any sort of large impact on either team going forward. This is the type of deal that is barley past the AHLer for AHLer type deal in terms of the overall impact on an organization.
But it is the type of trade any fan should want their team to be making, especially considering they revived Marchment’s career getting him for nothing and got a solid asset back for him. This is where it shows how important a good development staff is in an organization.