Toronto Maple Leafs: Top 10 Trade Deadline Bait Board

No. 9: Jonathan Toews

His contract is crazy expensive but he still should be on this list because of his pedigree.

When you have a chance to acquire a captain of three Stanley Cup championship’s, you have to do it. I have no idea what the cost would be or how this trade even works, but Toews still needs to be talked about because of who he is.

Despite playing on a terrible team this year, Toews has 11 goals and 22 points and is playing well. He’s clearly not putting up the same stats he used to, but that’s okay.

You’re only acquiring Toews for the playoffs, so it doesn’t matter how well he plays in the regular season. Once the playoffs start, you would hope that Toews’ leadership would elevate his game, and his teammates’, and you’d get that old player he once was.

Playoffs Toews is one of the best leaders of the past two decades and he would be a huge difference-maker to any team he plays on. He hasn’t had the opportunity of playing in the post-season for a few years, so I think joining a team such as Toronto would really energize his performance and he’d be the steal of the Trade Deadline.

Toews helped break the Chicago Blackhawks championship drought, so we’d all love to see it happen again with Toronto.