4 Under the Radar Players Toronto Maple Leafs Should Trade For
The Toronto Maple Leafs are making a trade, but it may not be for a player you’re very familiar with.
There have been a number of “big-name” players floating in Toronto Maple Leafs trade rumors. John Klingberg is the most obvious choice, but let’s not talk about him today.
Instead, let’s focus our attention to a few players that are good NHLers that may not be too known to the average Leafs fan.
Since the Leafs are tight to the salary cap this season and next, adding a player can be tricky for financial reasons. Although you’d love to add the best player, sometimes you need to get creative and add someone on less term and less money to improve your roster.
Over the years, the Toronto Maple Leafs have done this with a few players in the offseason, but they haven’t been able to execute the perfect mid-season trade. Ondrej Kase, Jason Spezza and Michael Bunting are all great examples of players on cheap contracts who have helped this tremendously this year, so think of someone like that through this experiment.
The Leafs need forward depth but they could also use help on the blue-line.
As a result, here are a few under-the-radar players that the Toronto Maple Leafs should target at the NHL Trade Deadline this year.
No. 1: Calle Jarnkrok
If you’re not too up-to-date on your Calle Jarnkrok trivia, don’t be alarmed. The 30-year-old has played over 500 NHL games and has been in the league for nine NHL seasons, but they’ve all been in Nashville and now Seattle.
Jarnkrok is a skilled natural centre, but he’s also played on the wing, so he’d fit Toronto’s needs.
With a $2M AAV, and as a pending UFA, Jarnkrok is the type of player that Toronto could fall in love with and re-sign him next year, if things go well. On a low contract, he could play top-six or bottom-six left-wing and be a replacement player for Pierre Engvall or Ilya MIkheyev.
He’s a smaller player (5-foot-11, 185 pounds), but has high-skill. He scored 13 goals in 49 games last year (which would have been on-pace for his best season), but averages around 15 goals each season.
As a depth forward, Jarnkrok could add some skill to the Leafs third or fourth line and be someone who could help contribute on the second-unit power-play.
No. 2: Marc Staal
I’ve talked about Marc Staal a lot recently, but it’s for good reason.
In my opinion, Toronto needs to add as many veteran defenseman as possible on cheap contracts for the playoff-run. They can’t rely on Travis Dermott, Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin every night and could use more stability in the room.
At 35-years-old, he isn’t the player he used to be, but he still has size and an intimidation factor.
As an Ontario kid without a Stanley Cup ring, you’d think that joining a team like Toronto would increase his energy levels and help motivate him to play his best hockey in a while. The Toronto Maple Leafs are still a young group, so continuing to add players like Staal into the dressing room will be good.
Also, the team isn’t going to ask Staal to play 25 minutes per night. Instead, he would be a reliable player for 15 minutes per night and could hold down the fort in penalty-kill situations as well.
Adding Staal would be great insurance as the team needs as much depth as possible.
No. 3: Marcus Johansson
I’m obsessed with Marcus Johansson’s game. At $1.5M, I don’t think there’s a player that can bring more than him at that price-tag.
With 97 NHL playoff games of experience, Johansson brings it in the biggest moments. In those 97 games, he has 47 points and has been a wrecking-ball for every team he’s played on.
He was a great depth piece during the Boston Bruins trip to the Stanley Cup Finals and could make the Toronto Maple Leafs third line one of the best in hockey.
Not only can Johansson provide offense, but he’s defensively-sound. The trio of him, David Kampf and Ondrej Kase would be a feisty line that opponents would hate to play against. They’d be able to score, but they’d mostly be asked to shutdown the other team’s best players and be pests.
Like we’ve done many other times with players from Sweden, Leafs fans would fall in love with Johansson immediately if he joined the team.
No. 4: Antoine Roussel
Speaking of players who Leafs fans could fall in-love with, Roussel may be that player as well.
The 32-year-old has never been a dominant offensive player, but he’s never been shy of the tough-stuff. Whether it’s laying his body or getting into a fight, Roussel would add some serious grit to this roster.
Whether or not you think that type of play is important in today’s NHL, when the playoffs start, it is. Here’s what Roussel said in an article with Azcentral.com in November, 2021 surrounding his game that should make Toronto Maple Leafs fans happy:
“It fits my game well to play with two guys that have patience and play well with the puck,” said Roussel (via: Jose Romero, Azcentral.com)
Roussel doesn’t need the puck and likes to play with those who are patient (aka: William Nylander and Mitch Marner). Paired in the top-six, Roussel can be a guy who flies around hitting everyone in sight, but uses that as an advantage to score a greasy goal off his shin-pads.
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All of these players may not be household names, but in one way or another, they could help the Leafs as they get ready for the playoffs.