The Toronto Maple Leafs are the hottest team in hockey right now, but they could still be open to making a trade soon.
A few weeks ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs fanbase was in shambles. Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews weren’t producing and the team was losing more often than winning.
However, as of today, the Leafs have won 10 of it’s last 11 games and they look like a top-five team in the NHL. Jack Campbell is playing like a Vezina Trophy candidate, the third line is scoring goals and the team’s top players are contributing every night.
Despite recent success, the team could always improve. They could use another top-six left winger to replace Nick Ritchie and could also use another depth defenseman.
Timothy Liljegren has stepped in nicely this year, but he still hasn’t won a spot in the line-up every night, meanwhile Travis Dermott and Justin Holl are still with the team, despite many trade rumors.
Having seven NHL defenseman is important during a long playoff run, but are those seven defenseman good enough to take you on that run? That’s the million-dollar question, as I’m not quite sold on it yet.
During the regular season last year, we saw the same six defenseman (Morgan Rielly, TJ Brodie, Justin Holl, Jake Muzzin, Zach Bogosian and Travis Dermott) for essentially every game and they looked great. However, when the playoffs started, that collection of defenseman still didn’t get the job done.
The defensive-core played pretty well throughout that seven game series against Montreal, but the Dermott giveaway in Game 6 is still one of the worst plays in recent history and cost Toronto the game and potentially the series. As a result, the Leafs need to upgrade or find another defenseman with more experience to help them get past their first round struggles.
Here are three pending UFA defenseman the Leafs could trade for.