The Potential Structure of a Toronto Maple Leafs Trade for Erik Karlsson

The Toronto Maple Leafs have an opportunity to acquire one of the greatest players to ever live.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a good team and will be a contender next year to win the Cup.

Erik Karlsson being available at the exact same time you’re looking to win is just too much to pass up.

Erik Karlson just won his minutes on a team that finished 29th place (53% Xgoals, 50% real goals) and scored 101 points while being second in the league in 5v5 points. He is quite literally one of the 100 or so best hockey players of all-time.

He has three Norris trophies and just had the 13th highest scoring season ever for a defenseman. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

The Potential Structure of a Toronto Maple Leafs Trade for Erik Karlsson

The Toronto Maple Leafs have never had a star player like this on defense since the NHL expanded in 1967.  Other than the risk of injury, which in hockey is extremely high for everyone anyway, Erik Karlsson doesn’t really come with any risks.

If he plays, he is awesome.  If he were to be added to the Leafs lineup, and he was healthy for any of the next four playoffs, the Leafs would likely be the Cup Favorite in each of those years.  Defenseman this good (Lidstrom, Chara, Bourque) tend to age like fine wine.

If he’s healthy he’s worth every penny.  You want a guy to smash, you can get one for a million bucks.  You want to add a few two-way bruisers, be my guest.  But for whatever his flaws are without the puck, Erik Karlsson makes it so you have the puck way more than the other team.

And really, all the offensive vs defensive defenseman arguments are worthless.  Each player is the sum of his results both offensively and defensively.  How they do it is beside the point.  You can’t say the Leafs “need defensive defenseman more” because whatever style a player plays, it’s the results (over a full season) that matter.

He played for the Sharks.  His goalies had a combined .888 save percentage when he was on the ice.  His team still tied their opponents 96-96 when he was on the ice.  You put almost any other player in the league in that situation and they are getting slaughtered.

His $11 million cap hit sounds high, but it’s not that bad.  Any trade the Leafs make with San Jose includes Brodie and Murray.  That’s $9.5 million, and goes a long way to making the money work.

The Leafs could give Brodie and Murray to the Sharks and have them eat $2 million of Karlsson’s contract.  The Leafs then basically get him for free this year and have to pay him $9 million for three years after that.  At most that is costing the Leafs a first rounder, but San Jose saves $36 or so million and eats less than they probably are prepared to.

The Leafs could save the whole $11.5 with a Brodie, Jarnkrok, Murray package.  After that, anything the Leafs give up that San Jose would actually want would be for the retention.  Just taking this contract should be enough to get the player.

It cost the Leafs a first round pick to get out of a $6.5 million cap hit a couple years ago. Chicago just got a second to take the contract of Josh Baily, which was $5 million.  The way I see it, Erik Karlsson should basically be free, and any retention the Sharks do is what the team who trades for him will pay for.

This may or may not be how it plays out, but I figure that if someone was going to actually make a hockey trade for him, it would have happened by now.

By giving up Murray, Brodie and Jarnkrok, the Toronto Maple Leafs can at least make the money work for this year.