Toronto Maple Leafs Roundtable: Trade Deadline Targets And Needs

James Tanner

The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t need to add anything – if they go into the playoffs as they are today, they’ll be one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup.

The Leafs high end talent is among the best in the league, as is their depth, scoring, blueline, power-play and coaching.  They aren’t the best at team defense or goaltending, but one of those things is neutralized by their excellent scoring and the other is almost too random to worry about.

A new goalie – if one that was obviously going to be better than Frederik Andersen was available – would be a nice luxury, but the odds of even identifying a better goalie, let alone trading for him, are low.

I keep hearing about how the Leafs sacrificed their forward depth for defense, and now have to replace Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnson.  While it’s an easy-to-follow narrative, the facts that neither of those guys contributed a single thing last year, and that Joe Thornton, Ilya Mikheyev, Alex Kerfoot, Wayne Simmonds and Alex Galchenyuk are as good as either player on their best day.

If the Leafs need anything, it’s a high-impact elite player who will make an actual difference.  Adding Granlund, Staal, Savard, or just about any other player the Leafs are linked to would only increase the team slightly.

How much better is Eric Staal or Mikael Granlund than Pierre Engvall? A little, maybe, but honestly not even more than a single win over a full 82 game schedule.  Almost all the rumours involve the Leafs only getting marginally better.

If the Leafs want to close the gap between them and Tampa, they’ve got to acquire one more elite player.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a forward or a defenseman, it just matters if the player is elite.

Taylor Hall, Evander Kane, Filip Forsberg, Anthony Mantha, Johnny Gaudreau or Mattias Ekholm would make the Leafs significantly better.  Those are the players the Toronto Maple Leafs need to target.