Toronto Maple Leafs Should Have Protected Jared McCann

Based on revisionist history, the Toronto Maple Leafs made a terrible decision allowing Jared McCann to go unprotected during the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft.

The fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired McCann in exchange for Filip Hallander and a 7th Round Draft Pick and didn’t take advantage of it, is so sickening.

Two years ago, the Leafs decided to protect the following players: Jack Campbell, Jake Muzzin, Morgan Rielly, TJ Brodie, Justin Holl, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander.

As a result, it left Alex Kerfoot and McCann as the two likely players to get drafted by the Kraken.

As we all know, the Kraken selected McCann and his short stint as a Leaf was over before it even started.

Toronto Maple Leafs Should Have Protected Jared McCann

Just for fun, let’s take a look at how each player has performed since:

Jared McCann

• 2021-22 season (via: hockeydb.com)
  • 74 Games: 27 goals, 50 points
• 2022-23 season:
  • 79 Games: 40 goals, 70 Points
• 2023-24 season:
  • 24 Games: 11 Goals, 16 Points

Alex Kerfoot

• 2021-22 season:
  • 82 Games: 13 goals, 51 points
• 2022-23 season:
  • 82 Games: 10 goals, 32 points
• 2023-24 season:
  • 22 Games: 1 goal, 9 points

Since joining the Kraken, McCann has arguably been the team’s best player and has been a goal-scoring machine on the top-line. Kerfoot, on the other hand, has been a third-line player who has underperformed his contract.

When the Leafs acquired McCann, he was making $2.94M versus Kerfoot’s $3.5M and was given a healthy raise of $5M AAV for five years, which now looks like a steal.

If you watched the Leafs game versus Seattle on Thursday evening, you were probably yelling at the TV, like me, every time McCann stepped on the ice because he looked incredible and showcased his world-class shot with two goals.

The Kerfoot vs. McCann comparable is the easiest one to look at because those were the only two players that Seattle was going to choose from, but it was really Justin Holl who threw a wrench into this. Based on the expansion rules, the Leafs could have kept eight total skaters and one goaltender or seven forwards, three defenseman and one goaltender.

As we all know, the team decided with eight skaters, when they could have kept both McCann and Kerfoot, as well as Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin and TJ Brodie, exposing Holl.

Holl was playing like a top-four defenseman, alongside Muzzin, and was only making $2M AAV, so it was a difficult decision to expose him, but realistically that should have been the move that Kyle Dubas made.

Holl is a fine defenseman, but his game fell off after that Expansion Draft. Instead of keeping him, McCann could have been the top-six left-winger the team was looking for this year and they probably could have kept Michael Bunting, who never would have had the same stats if he didn’t play alongside Marner and Matthews.

This is all revisionist history, but the Leafs made a big mistake by letting McCann walk, as he’s currently making the same amount of money as Tyler Bertuzzi as a top-six left-winger, when McCann could have filled that role much better.

They were able to get away with it during the Las Vegas Expansion Draft by exposing Brendan Leipsic, but unfortunately missed the boat during the latest draft.