No. 3: Matt Dumba
The Trade:
- Toronto Maple Leafs acquire: Matt Dumba
- Minnesota Wild acquire: 2023 First-Round Pick, Mac Hollowell & Alex Kerfoot
The Wild are in a weird spot right now. Despite being very competitive, they have dead cap-space money for the next five years, with the 2023-24 and 2024-25 season’s being affected the most.
As a result, the team is going to have get to super creative to stay under the salary-cap, all while staying in contention.
Their biggest UFA for next year is Dumba and unless they trade someone else, there’s a zero percent they can afford him at this rate. Although they’d love to have him, so would a ton of other trades at the NHL Trade Deadline, including Toronto.
The right-handed defenseman is someone’s who’s been linked to Toronto forever and would look great in the blue-and-white. With injuries to Jake Muzzin and Morgan Rielly already this year, who knows what’s going to happen near the playoffs, so the Leafs could always use another top-four defenseman.
Dumba would legitimize the Leafs defensive-core and would be an unbelievable pick-up as the team should still look at improving the top-four despite playing at an elite level lately.