An Example of a Creative Trade the Toronto Maple Leafs Could Make

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to fix their blue-line.

I don’t care what they say publicly, there is no possible way that the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be go into the playoffs with a group where Jake McCabe is the only physical defenseman they have.

The Leafs  are $2+ million over the salary cap but could have up to $7 million if they were willing to move Jarnkrok ($2 million) Lafferty and Timmins (each over $1 million) Brodie ($5 million) and replace them with waiver eligible rookies like Nick Robertson, Alex Steeves, Nick Abruzzese etc.  (capfriendly.com).

The Leafs don’t have a lot of cap space, but I still believe that if they are creative they can get better.

An Example of a Creative Trade the Toronto Maple Leafs Could Make

The Calgary Flames may or may not be a playoff team this year.  They therefore may be open to trading Chris Tanev who makes a $4.5 million cap-hit and is one of the NHL’s best defensive players.

If he scored at all, he would likely be an elite defenseman, but he usually is only good for about two goals per year (he did hit 28 points the year before last, however).

Anyways, Tanev is 33 but he’s still great and would be the perfect fit for a team that needs to get stronger and which desperately needs a high-end player for their top line.

Tanev would be a perfect compliment to Morgan Rielly and perhaps make it more realistic that we see Playoff Rielly in the regular season.  The Toronto Maple Leafs would go from a team that doesn’t have a top pairing, to having one of the better top pairings there are.

In order to facilitate this trade I have a radical suggestion:  In exchange for  Chris Tanev, the Leafs would offer a first-round pick, but if Calgary would pay to facilitate a deal with a third team that get’s Tanev double-retained (like the Leafs did with Ryan O’Reilly last year) that pick would not have lottery protection.

Tanev would then have a cap-hit of just over $1 million, and the Leafs would most likely get an elite player for only the cost of a low pick.  The chance of a lottery pick could temp Calgary into doing something they likely don’t really want to do.

As long as the Leafs include Lafferty or Timmins, this wouldn’t set them back any money.

This way the Leafs could improve the blue-line without deleting anything major from their roster and without adding to their already somewhat significant cap problems.