Grading the Toronto Maple Leafs Moves at the Trade Deadline
By Joseph Zita
The NHL trade deadline has finally come and gone for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the other 30 teams in the NHL.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were rumoured for what seemed like months to be very active come trade deadline day on April 12th. Safe to say, the rumours were right and they made a handful of moves in a four-day window.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were very busy starting on April 9th when they made their first move ahead of the trade deadline and they didn’t stop there as they ended up making four more trades after that.
The Leafs ended up making a total of five trades between April 9th and April 12th, hoping that they make a deep playoff run that fans and themselves have been waiting for.
TRADE 1: TOR acquires F Riley Nash from CBJ, in exchange for a conditional 2022 7th-round pick
(Condition: Pick becomes a 2022 6th-round pick if Riley Nash plays in 25% of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ playoff games this year.)
On April 9th, around dinnertime, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Columbus Blue Jackets made their second trade of the season with each other which sent Riley Nash from Columbus to Toronto in exchange for a conditional 2022 7th-round pick.
The initial thought I had when this trade happened was confusion for a split second, and then I realized what Kyle Dubas had just done in this trade. Dubas essentially acquires a bottom-six forward in Riley Nash, who is also currently injured, for a very cheap draft pick.
Nash, has a cap hit of $2.75M and was eventually placed on LTIR by the Maple Leafs to help them cap-wise which is a very sneaky and good job by Dubas and Pridham.
Nash will be available for the playoffs for Toronto so they traded for an injured fourth-line center who is very, very responsible defensively to give them cap space for more trades and have a chance to use him come playoff time as well. (Stats from CapFriendly.com)