Toronto Maple Leafs: Why You Don’t Trade Your Best Players

The Toronto Maple Leafs off-season has begun and many have speculated the Core Four will be no more.

Both Auston Matthews and William Nylander enter the final year of their contracts before becoming Unrestricted Free Agents, while Mitch Marner and John Tavares have two years remaining on their contracts with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The question is should the Leafs move one of their best players? And if so, who should be the one that is traded, with many speculating Mitch Marner to be the player to be moved.

The correct answer is, none of the core four should be traded with the caveat as long as both Nylander and Matthews are able to lock down to extensions.

Toronto Maple Leafs: 40-goal Scorer

Nylander is coming off a career season where he became a 40-goal scorer for the first time and also recorded more than a point per game for the first time.

He just turned 27-years old and while he does have stretches where he disappears, when he is moving his feet and handling the play he is almost impossible to get the puck from.

Out of those Core Four names, Nylander appears to handle the media the best; due to his calm and easy-going attitude nothing appears to phase him.

While the Toronto Maple Leafs have not had much playoff success, Nylander has been one of their best performers during this time of year.  Over the three previous playoffs, the Swedish Calgarian has collected 25 points in 25 games including 12 goals.

Nylander’s cap hit is just $6.96 Million going into next season and if you can get him signed long-term, I don’t know how you can trade this player.

A comparable extension for Nylander is what Mika Zibanejad signed two seasons ago at eight years for $68 Million ($8.5 cap hit).

When Zibanejad signed that deal, it was worth 10.43% of the cap hit, which would mean Nylander would be in around the $8.7M cap hit on an eight-year deal.

The Toronto Maple Leafs 100-Point Player

Out of the big names, Marner takes the brunt of the criticism more than any other as there are two things that seems to stir up things with fans about the Toronto native.

The first being his attitude displayed through the media that makes him seem like not the most caring player.

Some players are very guarded, and in this case, Marner appears more defensive with the media which I believe you can take as not caring, however, I believe it is just someone who is not good in front of the media.

If you watch how he is with his teammates and his emotions through the game, I see a very confident, if not cocky player that wants to win and just has not figured out the next level he need to get to.

Each season, Marner seems to mature a little bit more and this is one of the last steps he needs to take.

The second part of Marner’s game that tends to get fans frustrated is what I call his Globetrotter style to hockey.  Most times, it appears that Marner would rather make a highlight reel play and fail, than make a hard-nosed grinder play and succeed.

This is something that will have to change in his game and throughout the year and playoffs it seemed to have improved from years past.

Over the past five seasons, the former Memorial Cup MVP has collected 424 points in 348 games which averages out to 100-points over an 82-game season.

There are only a handful of players that can average those types of numbers over five consecutive seasons and had COVID not hit, Marner would be getting close to kicking down franchise records.

He is a game breaking type of player that don’t come around often and when you never win a trade when you make it.  If he isn’t traded, there is a likely scenario where he finishes next season sixth in all-time in Toronto Mape Leafs points behind just George Armstrong, Borje Salming, Dave Keon, Darryl Sittler and Mats Sundin.

The Captain

The only player from the Core Four that should be traded is captain John Tavares and the problem is, he is likely not willing to be moved as he has a full No Movement Clause.

If in some miraculous way Tavares does waive his NMC, there isn’t a team in the NHL that would want to take on Tavares’s $11 Million.

GM Kyle Dubas landed Tavares as the prize free agent in the summer of 2018 and the Toronto native even took a hometown discount to come to his childhood team.

Reports surfaced that Tavares turned down a deal from the San Jose Sharks that would have paid him $12.5 Million per season on the same seven-year deal.

Through five seasons, he has averaged just over 35-goals per 82-game seasons, which includes recording 47 goals in his first year of his deal and he has been just under a point per game throughout his tenure.

Statistically speaking, Tavares has put up great numbers, but it is obvious now that his foot speed has drastically seen a drop off from what was already the weakest part of the game.

While he did record four goals in the playoff, he scored in just two of 11 playoff games.

This upcoming season, while the contract carries a huge cap hit, it does not become a problem until the 2024-25 season and for just one year.  With both Nylander and Matthews new contracts (if signed) not taking place until the final year of Tavares’ contract .

Nobody is Moving

There is not a trade that you make where you move any of Marner, Matthews or Nylander that you win and at minimum you go watch them become better players somewhere else and at worst you watch them lift multiple Stanley Cups.

At the same time there is not a team that takes on the Tavares contract, so your best strategy going forward is that you stick with the same four players and think of it as the Big Three and in that one season in 2024-25 you do what you can to get through the year.