It's no secret that the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking to add to this roster. General manager John Chayka did a whole lot of heavy lifting through the summer, but now that they are 8-7-2 to start the season, the holes are starting to show up.
The playoffs are the goal and right now they are just sitting on the outside of the wild card. The hill will only get harder to climb as the season goes on, so what is Chayka thinking? What is he planning to do before the March 1 trade deadline to add to this team and make them so much more competitive that playoffs feels more guaranteed?
A couple trades could already be in the works, or at least trade talk is starting.
Maple Leafs are getting heavily involved in NHL trade talk
According to The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta, in an appearance on Leafs Morning Take earlier this week, the Leafs could have multiple trades coming down the pike.
Could the Maple Leafs have MULTIPLE trades coming?
— Daily Faceoff Toronto (@dfotoronto) November 2, 2026
David Pagnotta provides the latest on Toronto's search for defensive help and the type of player they're targeting.
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"They're still looking. They're still doing their thing, due diligence, whatever term you want to use, in trying to improve the blue line. And I could see multiple moves happening by the end of the trade deadline but they're still looking around," Pagnotta said.
"Simon Edvinsson is exactly what they need but that's a hell of a return you're going to have to give up for the kid. Barring that, and I got to feel a lot of fans would be torn on a potential Edvinsson trade if it were to happen. Other than that -- at least that's the calibre of defenceman that they're looking for. They're looking for big bodies that can shut down their own zone and get that puck up the ice."
It's good to know that Chayka is trying to scour the trade market to get that help and it makes perfect sense that a defenseman is the target. As Pagnotta mentioned, it could very well be two major additions to the blue line by the trade deadline since this is a desperate area of need.
Edvinsson is the ideal target, but as Pagnotta vaguely referenced, it would probably take someone like Easton Cowan and a high-end draft pick for the giant Swedish defenseman to come to Toronto. That is a price that might not be worth paying, even if he is everything the Leafs want in a blueliner right now.
So, they might just keep trying to make smart, low-cost additions. No short-term solutions either, but defencemen on the younger side who might not have broken out quite yet, but can really end up being part of the Leafs' solution on the blue line.
Why wait until the trade deadline?
The report specifically mentioned a couple deals before the trade deadline -- but why wait? The Maple Leafs need a fix right now and they cannot keep leaking points to the Utah Mammoth and Seattle Kraken, who have both won games over Toronto after costly late-game mistakes. Eventually those games will catch up to them and they can't handle having an inadequate blue line for much longer.
It might just be because teams still believe they are in it and the deals aren't there to be made, and those conversations will be more possible closer to the trade deadline, but by then the Leafs could very well be one of those teams selling off pieces as we gear up for the reality of handing over a top-10 draft pick to the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Leafs might not have time to wait for the perfect trade. They might just need to get a solid defenseman as soon as possible and we hope these reports become more frequent as we get closer and closer to an actual deal going down.
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