It’s time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to start taking advantage of the poor teams in the NHL.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of (if not) the wealthiest teams in the entire NHL. Obviously the pandemic has affected the team financially, but they’re in a much better spot than almost every other franchise.
Even when the league was booming and the Arizona Coyotes were making the playoffs, they struggled financially. It feels like ever since the Coyotes were awarded a franchise in the 1990s that relocation has been a topic surrounding the team. Even to this day, relocation rumors continue to swirl, unless the team builds a brand new arena.
If fans can’t attend games to start the 2020-21 season, it will seriously hurt Arizona. The team needs gate revenue more than almost any other team in the NHL, so they’ll continue to bleed dollars without them.
So in order to keep the team afloat, the best thing for them to do is to cut player costs. The Coyotes are currently up against the salary cap with a number of UFA and RFA’s to sign. As a young and exciting team, they have some great products to build around like Clayton Keller, Christian Dvorak and Jakob Chychrun, but they also have some veteran contracts they could get rid of.
The Leafs should try to take advantage of this financial crisis in Arizona and make a trade with them to improve their roster.
Leafs Land Darcy Kuemper from Arizona
The trade:
- Toronto Maple Leafs acquire: Darcy Kuemper ($4.5M), Marian Hossa ($5.275M)
- Arizona Coyotes acquire: 2020 1st Round Pick
The Coyotes don’t have a draft pick until the fourth round in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft and don’t have a first-round pick in 2021, so they’re in desperate need of one. They also already have a starting goalie in Antti Raanta, so they don’t need two.
The Leafs received a first-round pick from the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Kasperi Kapanen trade, with intentions to move it, so this could benefit everyone. Also, before we get into the Kuemper versus Freddie Andersen stats, don’t be alarmed by Marian Hossa.
Hossa is currently on Arizona’s books on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR), so if the Leafs acquired him, it wouldn’t go towards their salary cap because he’s not going to be playing in the 2020-21 season. By getting Hossa and Kuemper, the Leafs would be saving Arizona almost $10M, which is huge in this economy.
Over the past two seasons, Kuemper has been brilliant with a 2.27 GAA and .927 save percentage (stats: hockeydb.com). Both of those numbers are better than Andersen in that timeframe (2.81 GAA, .913 sv%) and although he’s only been a true starter for one NHL season, the 30-year-old is proving that he’s one of the better goaltenders in the NHL. In nine post-season games this year, Kuemper made 37 or more saves in five games and was the only reason why Arizona advanced past the qualifying series in the first place.
The Leafs could roll the dice with Andersen at $5M for one more season, or they could look to acquire Kuemper at $4.5M for two seasons. With a better contract and better stats, the Leafs should take advantage of Arizona and trade for Kuemper.