3 Hypothetical Trades the Toronto Maple Leafs Should Make

The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t need to make drastic changes but they definitely need to tweak the roster.

Although the Toronto Maple Leafs technically missed the playoffs this year, they are not a completely flawed team.

Any roster in the NHL would beg to have Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander and Mitch Marner on their team. However, enough is enough, right?

In order to balance out the roster and gain more defense, one of the big-four has to leave to clear space.

In a perfect world, you would want to keep all of those players and build around that core-four, but the salary cap is not going up. If the cap was rising, the contracts make more sense and the team would be able to build around them.

But the fact is, it’s not.

The salary cap is going to stay flat next year and depending on when fans are allowed back in the arena, it could stay that way for another two or three years.

If the cap is going to stay at $81.5 million for a while, half of your cap cannot go to four players unfortunately, so the team is going to have to make a few trades.

Let’s take a look at three hypothetical trades the Leafs need to make to become Stanley Cup contenders next season.