Taylor Hall
Hall is a superstar, former Hart Trophy winner who just keeps landing on teams even worse than the last. A left winger who would (like Mantha or Forsberg) make the Leafs into (essentially) an all-star team, Hall is a pending UFA who may actually be available.,
The Red Wings probably aren’t going to trade Mantha, and the Predators probably aren’t going to trade Forsberg, but the Sabres will 100% be willing to trade Hall.
Even though he’s an even more one-dimensional than Forsberg (Hall is better than only 15% of forwards defensively) he’s still going to make the team better. It’s questionable how much balance is necessary in the NHL, despite that seeming counter-intuitive.
The facts are that if you have the puck in the other team’s end, you’re playing the best kind of defense possible, since you cannot allow a goal in such a situation. You’d have to have literally no interest in hockey to not be curious about seeing what a player like Hall or Forsberg could do with the room playing on a line with Matthews or Marner would give them.
Again, I keep coming back to two facts when I think about adding players like this. 1: The Leafs already score more than most, if not all, other teams. 2) Adding defensively strong players is cheaper.