Every year as the NHL calendar gets closer to the trade deadline rumours start to swirl, especially around one of the league's most popular teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs. They are always reportedly involved in every trade discussion and in on every player.
This inevitably causes fake rumours but also bad rumours, where the Toronto Maple Leafs are reported to be in on many big money, name value players who would cost an arm and a leg and make very little sense for the team to acquire them.
As such, it is hard as an outsider to parse fact from fiction so I decided to use the famous TSN.ca Trade Bait Board to find three players that both fit the Leafs needs and/or who have been directly tied to them.
I am not by any means connecting the Leafs to any of the players, if anything I am doing the opposite. I have chosen three players that I believe the Maple Leafs should avoid heading towards the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline.
3 Players The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Avoid
The Leafs are linked to every player ever, which means there are many players that make no sense for them to acquire, here are three:
Brayden Schenn, C
There are multiple contributing factors that put Brayden Schenn on this list. The first is his age, at 33 years old he is not the player he once was in his prime years. During the height of his career, Schenn was a solid playdriver who may not have been the best two-way forward but was still capable of scoring at a 60+ point rate on a consistent basis. However the past two years he has seen a decline, scoring at a 46-point pace each year.
On top of his age and declining production, Schenn also has another three years left on his current contract after this season with a $6.5 million AAV (puckpedia.com).
On the bright side, his deal is much more tradeable after this year with his contract moving from a full no trade clause (NTC) to a 15-team modified no trade clause (M-NTC) and his actual salary begins to dip, allowing smaller market teams with low internal cap ceilings to acquire him. Regardless, I do not think it is smart for the Leafs to trade for him without large amounts of salary retention, especially not for the reason of reuniting him with his brother in Toronto.
Rasmus Ristolainen, RHD
Since John Tortorella took over as Head Coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, Rasmus Ristolainen has flourished. For much of his career, the 6-4 finnish defender was forced into a top-pair role and left out to dry most nights with the Buffalo Sabres, racking up points as a powerplay specialist. Now, paired with Yegor Zamula, his underlying numbers make him look like a much different player. He still has the powerplay touch but with strong defensive results. A lot of this can be attributed to his pairing and the style that Torts has his teams play lending itself to Ristolainen.
I would not be in favour of the Leafs acquiring him without the Flyers or a third-party club retaining significant salary on his $5.1 million AAV for the next two years after this season. I am not sure how he would play in the team's system and with Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson already under contract for the foreseeable future, I can't see him overtaking either of them for powerplay minutes. The reported asking price of at least a first round pick does not make him very appealing either.
Seth Jones, RHD
Jones, similar to Ristolainen has always been a player that has caused a divide between the public and private perception of him. This divide caused major outrage when he was traded from the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Chicago Blackhawks in a blockbuster deal in 2021. He was then quickly re-signed by the Blackhawks to an eight-year contract worth $9.5 million per year. He still has five years left on his bonus-laden deal, carrying a no-movement clause for the full term.
All advanced stats via MoneyPuck.com and evolving-hockey.com
I don't think Jones is as bad as the public perception of him but I also do not think he is worth a $9.5 million caphit for over five more seasons. Making this trade would also be difficult as it would require the Maple Leafs to pay either the Blackhawks or another team for salary retention, which will surely not come cheap. The complexities with the trade and with the large price tag in cap dollars and assets, I do not think this trade is even slightly worth it.
There are plenty of players that do make sense for the Leafs to go after and with some clear needs that I identified earlier this month, I will be coming out with some positional based articles for who the Leafs should acquire.