Toronto Maple Leafs: Most Likely to be Traded Next
By Reuben Gasee
Toronto Maple Leafs – Kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan at the draft (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
A couple players on the Toronto Maple Leafs could find themselves traded this off-season.
It’s no secret that the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking to improve their team and get themselves closer to their ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup. With Nick Robertson, Rasmus Sandin and the Euro signings of Alex Barabanov and Mikko Lehtenon set to take roster spots for the league minimum, the team has several trading options and a lot of flexibility.
With the salary cap unlikely to increase for the 2020-21 season due to the financial ramifications that the league has suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic, Kyle Dubas will likely need to make a few more moves to have spending money to retain restricted free agents, pending unrestricted free agents and new players.
The Leafs currently have $72,508,533 committed to 16 players for the 2020-21 season. Add in Nick Robertson, Alexander Barabanov, Timothy Liljegren and Mikko Lehtonen which brings that total to $76,071,866 given out to a combined 20 players. That means that he currently has about just under $5.5 million to give to another five players to fill out the roster.
The Leafs have the option to trade, walk away from, or give contracts to restricted free agents Evan Rodrigues, Frederik Gauthier, Ilya Mikheyev, Denis Malgin and Travis Dermott while Tyson Barrie, Jason Spezza, Cody Ceci and Kyle Clifford are free to sign with any team.
They won’t give contracts to all these players while the Leafs may not even go after some of their own unrestricted free agents meaning they will have to go after new players, whether it be via trade or free agency.
In order to do that though, they will need to trade players from within their organization to make room financially to sign other players. Here is who could find themselves out of Toronto before the 2020-21 season starts, whenever it does.