Toronto Maple Leafs Trade Potential Star Defenseman to Blue Jackets

The Toronto Maple Leafs have called an early end to the Mikko Lehtonen experiment.

On Friday the Toronto Maple Leafs sent Lehtonen to the Marlies on what was assumed to be a conditioning stint.  Players have to play, and sitting around for week after week on the taxi squad isn’t going to help anyone, so Lehtonen was optioned to the Marlies.

Then, in a surprising turn of events, he was sent to the Blue Jackets for a goalie.

Lehtonen’s career with the Leafs lasted just nine games, and he got just three assists while only barely scratching the surface of his obvious potential.

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Lehtonen came into the season as the best defenseman in the world not currently in the NHL, and he didn’t fail to live up to the hype as much as the Leafs were unable to give him a fair shot.

The fact is, it’s not easy to go from the large ice surface of the KHL to the more confined paces of the NHL at anytime, let alone in the middle of a pandemic where there is not even a training camp.

If Lehtonen failed to impress, it’s hardly on him – he was trying to break into the lineup of a team that is among the best in the NHL, one that is stacked with puck-moving defenseman.

The Leafs top three is unimpeachable, and Justin Holl was so good last season that he had to start in the top four.  That left the possibility of Holl’s failure or a spot on the bottom pair as Lehtonen’s only chance to crack the team.

Unfortunately for him, Justin Holl has played like a Norris Trophy wining superstar for most of the season, and Zach Bogosian brought something to the team that they weren’t getting anywhere else – namely a big physical body that can slow down play and not worry about scoring.

I was against Bogosian, but it turns out that he’s quite excellent in his role and has fit in well.  With Dermott having done nothing worthy of losing his job (quite the opposite actually) and Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren both available, there just wasn’t a path to playing time for Lehtonen.

Since he’s quite clearly an NHL player, the Leafs are acting fairly here by letting another team give him a shot, while they also get back an asset.

That asset is Veini Vehvilainen. He is a goalie who is 24 and has played one NHL game so far.  He is waiver exempt, so he won’t be stolen on waivers like Aaron Dell was, and as we’ve seen you can never have too many goalies.

Lehtonen may yet become a star.  He wasn’t going to do that sitting on the Leafs bench, and they weren’t going to get the chance to resign him after never playing him.  This is the best they could do, and since their team in first place, you can hardly argue with not giving him more of a chance.