The Toronto Maple Leafs play hockey in the NHL, a league that, fairly, has a reputation for being hostile to innovation of any kind.
Despite that, over the last several years, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been a pretty radical outfit, relatively speaking, when compared to their peers.
From their studs and duds approach to the salary cap, to their decision to go with rookie a GM and Coach, to their draft focus on intelligence and skill over size and dozen other small things, the Leafs have been very innovative under Kyle Dubas.
And also, throughout history, most of the best ideas are ones that, when first uttered, are met with scorn and derision.
Which is why, when I suggested the Leafs should trade TJ Brodie, I was called an idiot who knows nothing about hockey. Several people told me that no one who knows anything about hockey would ever even consider trading TJ Brodie.
So let me explain exactly why the Leafs should trade TJ Brodie.
Toronto Maple Leafs and TJ Brodie
TJ Brodie is a very reliable, puck moving defenseman whose value is primarily from his ability to keep the puck moving in the right direction.
He is in his fifth straight season of over 53% expected goals. Since joining the Leafs, they have consistently won his minutes, and he’s mostly been a top-pairing guy.
His results make him a borderline star.
The Leafs current blue-line makes him expendable.
Here is why:
Sandin and Liljegren are core players, putting up star-level results for extremely small salaries. If you traded one of them, you would hardly get better, even if you added the best defenseman available, which is Jakob Chychrun.
Justin Holl makes $2 million and has been a top-four, even top-pairing at times, player on one of the league’s best teams and been successful. He is the Leafs only big and physical defenseman, and he’s right handed.
Giordano is a league minimum player putting up star results at age 37. He is capable of playing the right side, and making room for a big addition on the blue-line.
Morgan Rielly has recently signed an eight year extension and is not being traded.
To improve the Leafs blueline, they only really have the choice of moving Holl or Brodie. For various reasons, Liljegren, Rielly, Sandin and Gio cannot be moved.
Brodie is better than Holl, but he’s also smaller, and makes $3 million dollars more. As good as Brodie is, if you were to add Chychrun to the roster in place of Brodie, the team gets better and actually saves money.
The Toronto Maple Leafs then have the cap space, assuming they trade Kerfoot, to get a big-name forward. You could also get back a pretty sweet asset for Brodie that you could use in conjunction with other assets to get a Larkin or a Meier.
So while the Leafs shouldn’t be looking to trade TJ Brodie, they should at least consider it. It is really the only way to improve their blue-line, while also being able to afford to improve their scoring too.
It’s unorthodox, but I don’t think it should be seen as a complete non-starter.
Moving Brodie saves money, brings in assets, allows the defense to improve without losing their only physical player, and could let the team upgrade both forward and defense.
There are still reasons not to do this, but I believe there are enough positives to at least consider this move. As to Brodie’s no-trade clause, it’s only a ten-team no trade list. You wouldn’t trade him to a team outside the playoffs, so it’s not likely to matter much.