No. 2: Minnesota Wild
Hypothetical Trade:
- Toronto Maple Leafs acquire: Matt Dumba
- Minnesota Wild acquire: Petr Mrazek, 2023 4th Round Draft Pick and Mac Hallowell
If you thought the Toronto Maple Leafs have cap-issues (they actually don’t by the way), look at the Minnesota Wild, instead.
Starting next year, they have between $12-14M in dead-cap money for the next three seasons (!!!). The salary cap could go up to $100M and they would still have issues.
As a result, the Leafs should look at this team and capitalize on their mistake.
One player who Toronto should be incredibly interested in is Matt Dumba’s, who’s a pending UFA after the 2022-23 season. At $6M per season, Dumba would fill a huge hole on Toronto’s right defensive side.
Although the Wild have a terrible salary-cap issue, they still want to be somewhat competitive, so they could re-up their goaltending situation for the next two years, but then clear $2.2M by trading Dumba.
There’s a zero percent chance the Wild will be able to re-sign Dumba after next year, so they may as well get a few assets out of it. Also, if you think Toronto’s in trouble by taking on an additional $2.2M right now, think again.
That can be cleared in a heartbeat by trading away Alex Kerfoot, or even Justin Holl, as Dumba would be a significant upgrade over him.