Toronto Maple Leafs Wishlist Ahead of NHL Trade Deadline
It’s hard to go one day without talking about Toronto Maple Leafs trade rumors because it’s that time of the year.
We all know it’s coming. The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to make a deal and it’s hopefully going to be a big one. In year’s past, the team has flirted with NHL Trade Deadline acquisitions, with some deals being bigger than others.
Jake Muzzin and Jack Campbell are two impactful players that are still with the organization who were mid-season trade acquisitions. Campbell’s been injured for the majority of the season, but he’s still an important piece of the future, while Muzzin is a top-four defenseman.
Besides those two transactions, the biggest trades in the Auston Matthews Era have been for aging fourth-line centres. Tomas Plekanec and Brian Boyle fit the needs for the Leafs for two seasons and were solid additions, but they didn’t stay for long. They played out the remainder of the year and were gone.
When you’re a Stanley Cup contender, mid-season trades are tricky. Most organizations have a short window to win, so battling between a current player and future assets is tough. If you think one more player will help you get to the Stanley Cup Finals, it’s worth making the move, even if it backfires.
If you give up your top prospect and a first-round pick, then get bounced in the first round of the playoffs, it’s a tough pill to swallow. However, taking that risk is what it’s all about in professional sports. Your fanbase deserves a winner, especially if that fanbase is the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This could be the year that fans have been waiting for since 1967. As a result, the Leafs have a wish list heading into the NHL Trade Deadline and here are the top three things they’re looking for.
No. 3: Bottom Six Defenseman
Potential Fits:
- Vince Dunn
- Marc Staal
- Brandon Montour
- Collin Miller
The Toronto Maple Leafs defensive-core is set. Although Justin Holl hasn’t been himself over the past week, he’s not going anywhere, unless something big happens and a Godfather-type trade comes out of nowhere.
In a perfect world, the team would have seven defenseman that they can rely on every night and rotate the No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7 defensive spots as the season progresses and the playoffs start.
Some options are better than others, but the four players listed are bottom-tier players that are pending UFA’s or have one year left on their deal. All four defenseman listed have been involved in trade rumors recently and three of the four make sense why.
Miller, Montour and Staal are stuck on two of the worst teams in the NHL. They’re getting exposed night-after-night and it’s not pretty. However, a chance of scenery could change their stance immediately.
Just look at Zach Bogosian, who was put on waivers by the Buffalo Sabres last year. He went from being out of the NHL to a Stanley Cup champion and is now a top-six defenseman on another Stanley Cup contending roster.
Any one of these players may be a victim of their surrounding and a change could really spark their career. They can all provide depth, so I’m sure the Toronto Maple Leafs would be happy to acquire one of these four players, if the price was right.
However, of all of those players, Vince Dunn should be the No. 1 target.
No. 2: Top-Four Defenseman:
Potential Fits:
- David Savard
- Mattias Ekholm
There’s only two names on this list because finding a top-four defenseman is so difficult in the NHL. As we’ve mentioned before, the Leafs were able to make this work with Jake Muzzin a few years ago, so maybe they can pull it off again.
In order to acquire Muzzin, the Leafs had to give up an NHL player, prospect and first-round pick.
Carl Grundstrom was on the Toronto Marlies when he got traded to LA, but hes now an NHL player, while Sean Durzi was a mid-tier prospect and the 2019 first round pick turned into Tobias Bjornfot.
By all accounts, Bjornfot is going to be an everyday NHL defenseman so the Leafs cost themselves that, but he’s probably not going to win a Norris Trophy one day. Although you always want to stock your prospects pool and have a guaranteed NHLer in your system, trading for Muzzin is worth it every day of the week.
The same thing would be applied for getting Savard or Ekholm.
Both defensemen are top-four players, with top-two potential. They’re both nasty and hard to play against and would be a great fit on the Leafs blue-line.
If the Leafs could pull off a trade for one of these players and it involved a top prospect (ie. Timothy Liljegren) and/or a first-round pick, I’d sign off on it any day. The deeper your defensive core is, the better chance you have at winning a Stanley Cup, so with a window to win now, the Leafs need to go all-in.
No. 1: Top-Six Power Forward
Potential Fits:
- Nick Foligno
- Kyle Palmieri
- Mikael Granlund
- Eric Staal
- Rickard Rakell
- Jake DeBrusk
When it comes to acquiring a top-six forward, there seems to be a number of names available this year. From youngsters to veterans, the variety of players available for trade is wide-open.
This sentence isn’t new. Money and salary cap issues are going to be an issue with most of these forwards. The Leafs are up against the salary cap, so they’d have to get creative in order to secure a top-six forward into their roster.
Similar to the top-four defenseman discussion, whatever the price is, not withstanding a core-four player, you have to make the deal, if you think it improves the roster. The Leafs have brought tough guys into the organization in the past (Kyle Clifford), but they typically can’t score as well.
Having a forward who can fight, hit and score is hard to come by. As a result, when a team has that type of player, they usually keep them. In a perfect world, Tom Wilson would be the most perfect fit for the Toronto Maple Leafs because he checks all of those boxes, but we all know Washington isn’t giving him up anytime soon.
Although someone like Wilson isn’t available, the six forwards listed above would all fit the needs of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Some players have more feistiness than others, but they can all score and provide that extra depth that this team is missing.
Although the Leafs bottom-six has been scoring more than often recently, this team relies on the core-four. If they don’t score, they rarely win. As a result, they need one more goal-scorer to count on and get the team going when they’re slow.
Next. If NHL was like NBA, McDavid Would Be a Maple Leaf. dark
All six of these forwards have the potential to do that and if the price is right, they’d all be at the top of the Leafs wish list, as they head into the NHL Trade Deadline.