The Toronto Maple Leafs have made their first move of the trade deadline and they knocked it out of the park.
Announced by the team on Thursday afternoon, the Maple Leafs have traded bottom-six center Nicolas Roy to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2027 conditional first-round pick, and a 2026 conditional fifth-round pick.
TRADE: We’ve traded forward Nicolas Roy to the Colorado Avalanche
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) March 5, 2026
ℹ️ https://t.co/UnPCdVQCQ0 pic.twitter.com/LGdxxXuMgr
Roy is signed through next season at a reasonable $3-million AAV cap hit and the Leafs will not be retaining any of his salary in this trade.
Maple Leafs trade Nicolas Roy to the Avalanche for a great package
The conditions on the draft picks are solid enough to not be too concerning for the Leafs. If the Avalanche own a top-10 pick in the 2027 NHL Draft, that first-round selection goes back to Colorado, any pick from 11th overall to 32nd overall, it belongs to the Leafs. If Toronto does not get the 2027 pick due to this condition, they will get an unprotected 2028 first-round pick from the Avalanche.
As for the fifth-round pick, the Avalanche currently hold three draft picks in that round. It will be the lowest of those three picks that go to the Leafs -- so basically, nothing much but an interesting condition nevertheless.
For the Leafs, this is massive. General manager Brad Treliving set his price at a first-round pick for Roy before really diving into the trade market and came out with one without needing to take on a bad contract or do some other hurtful thing to his roster.
Infamously, the Leafs traded their own 2027 first-round pick to the Philadelphia Flyers in the Scott Laughton trade at last year's trade deadline. It has been a move that has soured on them -- they could possibly re-coup some of those assets by trading Laughton before Friday -- but now they get to at least have a selection in that round and not sit there remembering what could've been.
The Leafs acquired Nicolas Roy last summer as the return for the signing rights of Mitch Marner from the Vegas Golden Knights. In 59 games this season, the 29-year-old center scored five goals and 20 points for Toronto.