Toronto Maple Leafs Should Make Huge Trade With Sharks

The Toronto Maple Leafs roster needs early-season surgery, and the San Jose Sharks are a horrible team with a ton of cap-space (some this year, lots next year), so they are perfect trade partners.

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to do what smart teams are good at and bad teams are not: finding value.

If the Sharks can retain some money, there is a player that they have who would make the Leafs a way harder team to play against by adding another star to their lineup.

The target: 29 year-old Tomas Hertl.

Toronto Maple Leafs and San Jose Sharks Are Perfect Trade Partners

Hertl is signed for seven more years.

I highly doubt he would have agreed to seven more years in San Jose if he knew how bad the team was going to be.  His time as a star player will be over before the Sharks are good enough to compete again.

The Sharks aren’t going to get much for a nearly 30 year old player on a horrible team who has seven years of (likely) being overpaid left on his contract.

If, however, they retain some money, they can probably get a few really nice assets for their rebuild. If the Leafs could get creative, and work out a Ryan O’Reilly type trade where they get the player they want double-retained.

It might seem crazy trading for an expensive forward, given how the Leafs are constructed, but I really don’t think you can overrate the effect having a star player on the third line has on a team.

The cap is going up, so if the Sharks retain any money this deal won’t be bad at all.  Additionally, the cost from this year can be off-set by including Max Domi going back the other way. 

Hertl is a massive upgrade over Domi and gives the Leafs the kind of star-based depth the New Jersey Devils have assembled.

Hertl does have a no-movement clause, but I doubt that would be an issue if he has the chance to play for a team that is a contender, since San Jose won’t be one for years.

Additionally, the Sharks have a little-known defenseman named Ty Emberson who was a 3rd round pick of Arizona’s back in 2018.  He’s big and right handed, and despite having only 9 NHL games to his resume, has managed to put up some staggeringly good numbers considering he’s been playing tough minutes on a horrendous team.

Emberson would fit in nicely on the Leafs terrible blue-line, and Hertl would give them a star player to pair with Robertson and Jarnkrok on what would be essentially another first line.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should forget about trading with the Flames and call up the Sharks.