Toronto Maple Leafs: Weighing the Pros and Cons of a Patrick Kane Trade
By Luke Ryan
Pros of a Toronto Maple Leafs Trade for Patrick Kane
The case for the Toronto Maple Leafs to add a talent like Patrick Kane is pretty obvious; 92-point players don’t just become available very often, if at all.
A trade of this magnitude would absolutely be the ‘Summer of Kawhi‘ moment that highlights just how much the franchise wants to get the job done and finally bring the Stanley Cup back to Toronto.
The most obvious pro, beyond the mega marketing dollars the duo of Kane and Auston Matthews could command for the Leafs south of the border, is the pairing those two could potentially be on the ice.
Here you have Matthews, coming off a 106-point season combining with possibly one of the league’s best right-wingers ever (at the very least arguably the best in the last decade). As a duo, they could be unstoppable.
The second pro of such a scenario is that Mitch Marner could reunite with John Tavares. Their last full season together saw Tavares score a career-high 47 goals.
Assuming William Nylander remained a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs in any transaction, you’re then got a clear top-six talent that you can potentially deploy both on the third-line or at will on the top two lines to screw up the opposition’s match-ups.
Obviously, for any deal to be made there would be considerable salary hurdles to be cleared, but assuming an end result of at least 50% being retained, Patrick Kane would be on one of the league’s biggest bargain deals especially if he maintained last year’s form.
After all, 92 points on one of the league’s least impressive teams is truly remarkable. On one of the league’s most impressive offensive teams, you’d have to imagine Kane could easily add another 10 or 20 points to that total.
Patrick Kane would absolutely bring a lot beyond just his points total to the Maple Leafs organization. He has been there and knows how to get it done in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Adding him would be the biggest indicator that this year’s Leafs are truly all or nothing and equally importantly, would prevent any rival bolstering their ranks.
However, such a deal isn’t without considerable risk involved. Here we look at the cons of pursuing a Patrick Kane trade.