Minten Making the Toronto Maple Leafs Allows Them to Trade Nyander

The hubris of the Toronto Maple Leafs to try and compete with their current blue-line is almost unbelievable.

The odds of the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup with their blue-line as currently constituted are basically zero. 

They do not have a legitimate #1 defender, and no one on the roster who looks like they have the potential to step up and become one.

Their highest upside player is Liljegren, whom the coach has benched in each of the last playoff seasons.

They can’t make up for their lack of elite players with depth because they don’t have any.  They seriously seem to think they can get away with playing John Klingberg  in the top-four.

They can’t.

Guys who were previously the worst player on the worst team in hockey do not, at age 31, get any better.  His career is over and signing him to a $4 million dollar contract will prove to have been a bad decision.

There is only one solution to this problem, and you can thank Fraser Minten for making it possible.

He has been one of the best 20 players in camp and made the Toronto Maple Leafs, on merit at least.

Minten Making the Toronto Maple Leafs Allows Them to Trade Nyander

This doesn’t mean he’ll stick in the NHL. 

The NHL has an unreasonable and unscientific fetish for experience and so teams generally will take a terrible bottom-of-the-lineup veteran with little to no upside over a 19 year old, unless absolutely forced.

Additionally, instead of seeing a useful roster piece who makes the league-minimum, teams tend to worry about burning a year of the entry-level deal.

All this makes it unlikely that Minten will be a Toronto Maple Leafs player after the tenth game of the season, if he even makes it that far.

However, since he is clearly ready for NHL minutes, and since the Leafs clearly have a glaring weakness on defense, his ascention might create an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have.

The Leafs started William Nylander at centre this preseason mostly because their depth is so weak that otherwise they are forced to use David Kampf at 3C.

Minten changes everything. If he can centre a line with Max Domi and Nick Robertson/Calle Jarnkrok and win his minutes, the Leafs can forget about Nylander at centre and trade him for a defenseman.

Now, I’m not crazy about trading Nylander and for the last five years I’ve basically mocked all trade proposals that included him.

However, back then, the Leafs had Rielly, Muzzin and Brodie all in their primes.  The years have changed that, and instead of having 3 x star defenders, the Leafs aren’t sure to have a single one.

Trading from a position of strength to address a position of weakness is exactly what you’re supposed to do.  Having 3 x Elite Forwards is awesome, but when you have don’t have any star defenders it becomes a luxury you can no longer indulge in.

The time to trade Nylander was probably earlier this summer, but with him currently unsigned and the blue-line looking weaker than ever, Frazer Minten has perhaps eliminated any excuse for keeping him.