After Trading Their High Picks, What do the Toronto Maple Leafs Have Left?

The Toronto Maple Leafs have an excellent farm system. We break down all the draft picks they have in the next three years.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the middle of a race to make the playoffs.

Their concentration is winning the games on the schedule ahead of them, we will take a different focus.

The future of the team gets determined through strong scouting and trades. We take a deep dive at the health of their draft boards by dissecting what Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, and the Maple Leafs have in hand in the coming years.

2020

On June 26, 2020, the Toronto Maple Leafs scouting team will sit at a table in Montreal and only get up to use the washroom. Unless a trade is made between then and now, the Leafs will not get to pick until day two of the upcoming draft. That’s because they traded away their first-round selection in order to dump Patrick Marleau on the Carolina Hurricanes.

Toronto needed to get out of the $6.25 million salary they gave the veteran forward. It was an expensive transaction that also included them shipping out a 2020 seventh-round pick but gaining a sixth-round pick for the same draft.

The Leafs also traded away their third-round pick in this draft. It happened in one of the biggest trades of the decade. This was the deal that sent their longtime center Nazem Kadri and defenseman Calle Rosen to the Colorado Avalanche for Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot. The Leafs also picked up a 2020 sixth-round pick in the swap.

Toronto will be drafting in the fifth-round but not with their own pick.

That’s because they sent it to the Florida Panthers in exchange for goaltender Michael Hutchinson. Coincidentally, the Leafs gained a selection in the round via a goaltender swap. They took Robin Lehner from the Chicago Blackhawks in a three-team trade deadline agreement. The Leafs then flipped him to the Vegas Golden Knights for their fifth-round pick. In the end, the only cost for the draft pick was the $1.1 million Toronto retained from Lehner’s salary.

The Leafs picks for this draft may not seem that great, but one positive is that with six late round picks, they’ve got very good odds of getting lucky and finding a late-blooming impact player.

2020 Picks Summary:

• 0 first-round
• 1 second-round
• 0 third-round
• 2 fourth-round
• 1 fifth-round
• 3 sixth-round
• 3 seventh-round

2021

Next year’s draft is far more promising.

The Toronto Maple Leafs possess their own picks in the first couple rounds. However, there are conditions on both these selections. A part of the Marleau trade protected the first-round from being a top ten choice for the Hurricanes. While it doesn’t look as though that will happen, if the Leafs miss the playoffs and win the lottery, they get to keep their 2020 first and Carolina would swap it for a first in 2021.

While that 2021 first-round appears to be safely in Toronto’s possession, the second-round pick is more at risk at disappearing. When the Leafs made the big trade with the Los Angeles Kings, they sent more than just Trevor Moore out west to get back Jack Campbell and Kyle Clifford. Dubas had to include a third-round pick they got from the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2020 draft as well as their own third-round pick, with conditions.

There are two ways in which that third-round selection gets upgraded for the Kings to a second. The first would be if Clifford re-signs with the Leafs next year. The second way is if the club qualifies for the playoffs this year and Campbell wins six regular-season games leading up to the postseason.

The only other pick in question is in the sixth-round. There is a good chance that Toronto will retain it but if Max Veronneau plays ten games in either of the next two seasons, they will need to hand the pick over to the Ottawa Senators.

2020 Picks Summary:

1 first-round
1 second-round
0 third-round
1 fourth-round
1 fifth-round
1 sixth-round
1 seventh-round

The future looks bright for the Maple Leafs. In 2022, Toronto still has all its picks intact but don’t expect that to still be the case in June that year.