What Can the Toronto Maple Leafs Pick From the Canucks’ Carcass?

With the Vancouver Canucks’ in disarray, now might be a very opportune time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to pounce and see what their roster has to offer.

The Canucks tried to avoid rebuilding, and they don’t have the roster for it.  They need to clean house, and there should be some good players available for the Toronto Maple Leafs and other contenders willing to pony up.

The likes of Bo Horvat, Andrei Kuzmenko and Luke Schenn are all on expiring deals that’ll see them become unrestricted free agents this summer.

Likewise, they have Nils Hoglander, Ethan Bear and Travis Dermott among their restricted free agents set to expire.

When the Canucks are committed to paying a combined $13.26 million to Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers for at least 2 more years (per CapFriendly), you can see why there’s a possibility to make a deal.

Much like the market the Toronto Maple Leafs play in, the Canucks find their decision-making firmly under the microscope. Any deal they make would likely upset their fan base and end up the fodder of talk radio for weeks.

As such, you have to imagine that they would look to tread especially carefully and while Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes are likely untouchable, everyone else may be fair game.

This team was expecting to be competitive in the Pacific Division this season, especially with Bruce Boudreau at the helm and some exciting summer additions.

Instead, they languish in 6th place in their division with a 4-7-3 record and points percentage of 0.393% – this isn’t how it was meant to be.

The good news is that the Toronto Maple Leafs have had recent dealings with Vancouver and indeed with their President of Hockey Operations, Jim Rutherford; the latter of which famously oversaw the Phil Kessel trade to Pittsburgh.  Kyle Dubas and Rutherford have hooked up on several deals in the past, and this could be conductive the Leafs and Canucks making a deal.

The Leafs have Jake Muzzin’s cap space to play with, as he’s likely not coming back. They also have the options to move Kerfoot, and Holl for another five million.   The Leafs have flexibility to make a move if they want to.

  Thatcher Demko

The Toronto Maple Leafs concerns when it comes to goaltending have been well documented, so of course there  is an appeal in trying to add a young goalie that has proven himself able to handle the workload of a nominal number one.

Applying some common sense though, a deal for Thatcher Demko likely would not come cheap at all. Regardless of his 0.874 save percentage to start this season and 4.01 goals-against-average, he is still a valuable asset.

Last season, he maintained a 0.915 save percentage across 64 games with a goals-against-average of 2.72 suggesting that this season’s numbers so far might just be a blip or related to his team’s performance overall.

As such, it isn’t crazy to imagine a very high price being placed on Demko by the Vancouver Canucks; he’s very likely viewed in the tier just below untouchable in terms of any organizational re-jig.

The Leafs fans would like this move, but it likely isn’t a good idea, and it isn’t something this management group would likely consider.

He’s in year two of the same contract they didn’t want to give to Jack Campbell.  Whatever anyone else’s opinions on goalie are, the Toronto Maple Leafs do not believe in spending assets or making long term commitments to them, due to their unpredictability.

 Bo Horvat

Bo Horvat really is the wild card idea here for the Toronto Maple Leafs; the current Vancouver Canucks captain is a pending UFA.

With his contract essentially turning him into a rental in the spring expect Horvat to be the target of every contender, and expect his cost to be sky high.

Sure, there is the possibility that he re-signs in Vancouver, and it’s even likely that if he doesn’t he will cost too much to make trading for him worthwhile.  Still, you have to at least consider it when a player like this is even potentially available.

Horvat was a positive Corsi player despite a rotating cast of linemates last season, with an Expected Goals percentage of 59.75%, additionally he was a remarkable 57.02% on face-offs.

Horvat provides excellent defense, and is potentially a 40 goal scorer (last year he scored 30 in 71 games).  He’s a leader, and he’s only 27 years-old.

Outside of going for a big name defender to put at the top of the lineup, it’s hard to picture a better fit for the Leafs than one of the NHL’s best two-way players on a tiny cap hit.

The Leafs forwards would be ridiculous with this kind of addition, which is the one thing that makes it seem so unlikely.

Elias Pettersson

This isn’t likely to happen.

But we at least have to consider it.

The Canucks need to bottom out.  They have a 24 year old superstar coming off two fairly disappointing seasons, and now even though he’s scoring again, the team stinks.

Is this the franchise player you want to commit to?

Is it even possible to build a winner around Demko, Pettersson and Hughes when, before you’re anywhere close to competing, you’re going to have to choose between committing to Pettersson at $10-12 million per season until he’s 35.

Given that, wouldn’t they at least listen to offers?

The Leafs could probably put together a pretty crazy offer.

I for one like the idea of a Mitch Marner, Auston Mattews, Elias Petterson first line.

It’s not realistic, but someone is probably going to trade for him, why can’t it be the Leafs?

Pettersson has one year left at a very reasonable $7.3.

If you were a team that needed to go all-in and your job was on the line, you could do worse.

There really isn’t much else you’d want on the Canucks.  Travis Dermott would be a nice take-back, and of course, if someone wanted to retain half of Ekman-Larsson’s contract, or half of Tanner Pearson’s (if and when he’s healthy) that would be OK too.

But when it comes to the Vancouver Canucks, the Toronto Maple Leafs should really only be interested in their big fish.