The Toronto Maple Leafs may or may not win the Cup this year.
The 2020 Playoffs are going to feature an insanely random five game play-in series, where the Toronto Maple Leafs will face the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This is a series the Leafs should win, but who knows? This year’s playoffs – should they actually happen – are even more unpredictable than usual.
I hope the Leafs can win the Cup, but lets just assume for a moment that they don’t.
In order to cement their status as contenders for next season, I think they should be on the lookout this summer for their very own Kawhi Leonard.
The Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship last summer by taking an already great roster and adding a legitimate superstar to the roster.
Leonard was a ringer, and he helped the Raptors – an already excellent team – get over the top.
The Leafs could be looking for a similar situation.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Kawhi Leonard
In order to fit the description, the Leafs would need to find and trade for a player on an expiring contract, and that player would have to be one of the NHL’s best players.
He would have to be playing for a team that most likely wouldn’t be in a position to win now, and he would have a ridiculously team-friendly contract so that the Leafs could actually get him.
That player is Brendan Gallagher.
Brendan Gallagher. whom the Covid Shut-down prevented from scoring his third straight 30 goals season, will be 29 at the start of next season, and will be on the last year of what is probably, dollar-for-dollar. the NHL’s most team-friendly (non entry-level) contract.
Gallagher, or reasons known only to his agent, will have a cap hit of just $3.75 million dollars next year.
This is a contract the Leafs could more or less afford just by trading away Kasperi Kapanen. Kapanen is a nice player, but Gallagher is an elite player.
This year, Gallagher put up MVP worthy 5v5 numbers: 58% CF, 58% Goals-for, 61% expected-goals for, and an insane 64% high-danger chance percentage.
Gallagher scored at a rate of 2.62 points/60 minutes of 5v5 ice-time, which is just slightly less than Connor McDavid and more than potential Hart Trophy nominees Auston Matthews and Elias Petterson.
He was seventh in the NHL (Matthews was 3rd) in goals per minute.
Quite simply, Gallagher is one of the NHL’s best players. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).
The Canadiens do not appear like they’ll compete for a championship any time soon, and the cost to re-sign Gallagher would be astronomical, especially since he is very small, very physical player who doesn’t figure to age particularly well.
With one year on a his deal at a dirt-cheap cap hit, Gallagher would have massive trade value.
To bring in Gallagher, the Toronto Maple Leafs would have to pay a steep price, just as the Raptors did for a single year of Kawhi.
This is going to take a package centred around Rasmus Sandin or Nick Robertson. It would be a massive risk, but at some point a team may have to move all their chips into the centre of the table if they want to win.
In the NHL, elite players drive wining, and players don’t get much more “elite” than Gallagher. If the Toronto Maple Leafs are serious about wining, then they should take a page out of the Raptors playbook and make a trade like this.