Toronto Maple Leafs Make a Surprise Trade for Kyle Clifford

The Toronto Maple Leafs made a surprise trade yesterday when they acquired Kyle Clifford from the St. Louis Blues.

The surprise was that the player was on Waivers, so the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t have to trade for him.  But considering that Future Considerations is a pretty good price to pay, and it doesn’t affect your ability to make future waiver claims, I’d say it’s a smart move.

It was also surprising because Clifford left Toronto  as an unrestricted free-agent who priced himself out of town.

It is therefore stranger that they have retroactively decided to meet his salary demands.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Kyle Clifford

The Leafs added Kyle Clifford in the same trade that brought in Jack Campbell.   In fact, the Leafs needed a goalie and some toughness so they acted about a month ahead of the NHL traded deadline, and the stoppage of the NHL season due to Covid.

At the time, we graded the Trade an A- for the Leafs, and we didn’t even know that Jack Campbell was going to become the NHL’s best goalie.  The fact that he has makes the trade impossible to grade – it’s roughly equal to the Doug Gilmour trade in terms of value for the franchise, and may yet go down as the best trade in team history.

Just not because of Kyle Clifford.

When Clifford left, one assumes it was because St. Louis was offering a two-year term. Since the Leafs (correctly) like to keep their bottom-six flexible due to their focus on using most of their money on star players there was no need to give two years to Clifford. They probably shouldn’t have done so with Ritchie either, but he’s got some nice upside that makes it potentially worthwhile.

Since Clifford is, once again, upon the Leafs acquiring him, a pending UFA, it hardly matters at this point.

As you can see from the chart, Clifford provides basically no offense, but is an elite defender.  He joins Ondrej Kase, David Kampf, Pierre Engvall, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, Alex Kerfoot and Pierre Engvall who all provide plus-defense (or are capable of it, at least).

In fact, the Leafs have become quite the two-way team while no one was looking.

With Ritchie, Bunting, Simmonds and now Clifford, they’ve also collected a nice group of tough-guy-grinders who can all play.

The Toronto Maple Leafs roster has a pretty solid mix of skill, grinding and top-notch defense. The addition of Kyle Clifford is only going to make them better….I just wonder who ends up sitting out because of it.