4 Potential Forwards Toronto Maple Leafs Could Trade For Next Week
The NHL Trade Deadline may be more than one month away but it’s possible the Toronto Maple Leafs strike a deal next week.
Elliotte Friedman mentioned on Sportsnet’s Wednesday night broadcast that the Leafs may be adding a player as early as next week. Since the team only plays two games from March 15-25, there’s a gap in the schedule that would beneficial for a trade with an American team.
As everyone’s most likely aware at this point, any American player entering Canada has to participate in a 14-day quarantine before joining the team. With teams playing sometimes as many as five games in seven days this season, there’s only a few spots in the schedule where a Canadian team can acquire an American club’s player and make sure he doesn’t miss a lot of action.
With limited practices this season, teams have been using games to find chemistry and work out their kinks more than any campaign before. As a result, any Canadian team making a trade needs to be strategic if they’re looking for a dance partner south of the boarder.
The Leafs are the best team in hockey, but it’s clear they want to add to their roster.
They still have Wayne Simmonds and Nick Robertson, who’ve yet to return from the minors or injury, but Kyle Dubas and company still want to make sure their depth is strong.
More injuries are bound to happen and when the playoffs hit, you need to be as deep as possible to win a Stanley Cup. This means that players like Pierre Engvall, Jimmy Vesey, Nic Petan, Alexander Barabanov and Travis Boyd are going to have to play their best hockey to stay in the lineup moving forward.
Even if the Leafs continue to win games, it feels like management isn’t going to be complacent with this roster. Sometimes you don’t want to fix something that’s not broken, but in this situation, if the Leafs can actually grab a top-six forward, it’s worth making the trade.
Here are four potential forwards the Leafs could trade for next week.
No. 1: Mikael Granlund
In what felt like a WWE Royal Rumble reveal, Elliotte Friedman announced that Granlund was the “mystery forward” that he thought the Leafs would be interested in trading for.
From there, every Leafs fan in the world now knows who Granlund is, because they probably didn’t know much about him before. After playing seven seasons in Minnesota, he’s spent the last three with the Nashvile Predators.
The Leafs would most likely need Nashville to retain some salary for this deal to work, but that’s easily doable. Although the Leafs typically like trading for players with term, Granlund is an Unrestricted Free Agent this summer.
Granlund fits a number of boxes that the Leafs are looking for. He can play centre or wing and has playoff experience with 49 career games. As a two-time 20 goal-scorer, he’d be able to slide in nicely alongside John Tavares and Mitch Marner.
The Leafs already have a lot of offense, but when it comes to a seven-game series with your season on the line, you can never have too much. Granlund’s hockey sense and passing ability may be his biggest asset, so he’d be a great resource at helping Nylander or Tavares score at a higher rate 5v5.
No. 2: Eric Staal
If the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Staal, they’d have the greatest team ever assembled in NHL 10.
The 36-year-old isn’t going to put up another 100 point season anytime soon, but he could be another Jason Spezza or Joe Thornton. As shown by both of those players this year, there seems be a fountain of youth in the Leafs dressing room.
The former No. 2 overall selection in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft won the Stanley Cup in his second NHL season, but hasn’t got close to the promised land ever since. In fact, Staal hasn’t advanced past the First Round of the playoffs since the 2008-09 campaign.
Based off his current situation with the Buffalo Sabres, Staal isn’t breaking that routine anytime soon.
Staal’s $3.25M cap-hit definitely hurts his trade situation, but the Toronto Maple Leafs could be able to make it work, regardless. Unsure of what a trade package would look like, the team may be intrigued with acquiring Staal based on the success they’ve had with other veterans.
Although he’s had a tough start with the Sabres, you could say the same thing for almost every player on that roster this year. By all accounts, Staal is still a 20 goal scorer and someone who can play in the top-six. Also, it was only three years ago that he scored 42 goals, so there’s clearly some gas left in the tank.
No. 3: Bobby Ryan
His numbers aren’t amazing (six goals, 13 points in 23 games), but it’s still good enough to lead the Detroit Red Wings in scoring this season.
It’s no secret that the Red Wings want to tank and acquire the No. 1 pick this year. They’re clearly in a rebuild and are at least two years away from being a playoff contender again. As a result, there’s no need to hang onto their highest scoring player.
Ryan signed a one-year deal worth $1M per season, so it’s also one of the easiest contracts to move in hockey. Even if the Wings thought Ryan could be a mentor to their youth and be apart of the rebuild, they may as well ship him out to acquire a draft-pick and revisit a new contract in the summer.
Without any insight, you’d think that Ryan would want to rejoin a contender and get a chance to play playoff hockey again.
Ryan’s on the verge of that top-six forward that the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for, but based off his contract, he could be their best and easiest option. It may have been years since Ryan’s been a 30 goal-scorer, but playing alongside such skill as Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Tavares or Nylander could help turn back the clock.
No. 4: Taylor Hall
Two goals in 21 games and an $8M cap-hit, sign me up!
That’s the hardest thing to comprehend when it comes to a Hall trade, but he could check off a ton of boxes that the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for.
In the history of hockey, there’s no Hart Trophy winner that’s been in worse situations than Hall. He played in Edmonton for six seasons and got traded for a top-four defenseman one year after the team drafted Connor McDavid. From there, he dragged a brutal New Jersey Devils team into the playoffs, which garnered that MVP award, only to get beaten in five games.
Now, after playing in Arizona with hopes of a monster UFA contract, he ends up signing a one-year bridge deal worth $8M, in Buffalo. If Hall still has the same agent from his draft year, he should’ve been fired four times by now, and if he has a new one since, that guy should be fired too.
There’s a reason Hall went No. 1 overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. He’s incredibly talented and the Toronto Maple Leafs should acquire him just so they can have four former first-overall picks (Joe Thornton, Auston Matthews, John Tavares) on their team.
Next. Leafs Should Split Matthews and Marner. dark
Hall has never played with the talent that the Toronto Maple Leafs have. His vision in speed would fit perfectly alongside any of the core-four and he’d probably revive his career in Toronto. From a business perspective, if Hall got traded to Toronto and lights it up with a long successful playoff run, he could walk himself back into UFA status and sign that monster contract that he hoped for last year.