The Toronto Maple Leafs will take their new lineup for a test drive tonight as they play the Colorado Avalanche.
The Toronto Maple Leafs added centre Scott Laughton and defenseman Brandon Carlo yesterday ahead of the NHL's 2025 Trade Deadline.
The moves were decent but the Leafs failed to get a star player who will really make a difference. The did, however, supposedly try to get one: According to Nick Kypreos the Leafs made a huge offer to the Hurricanes for the superstar forward.
This of course raises all sorts of questions about what would have happened with Mitch Marner had this play worked, and what will happen to him this summer.
New-Look Toronto Maple Leafs get a test-drive + Rantanen rumour raises questions
However, the big questions has nothing to do with the future. My thought here is OK if the Rantanen thing didn't work out, but you were willing to put together a massive package for an elite player, why didn't they then take this package around the league and see what elite defenseman they could have gotten for it?
Because as much as yesterday's moves improve the Leafs, they didn't add a star player and that means that even in a best-case scenario, those were only minor moves. There is virtually no chance that either Laughton or Carlo become star players this late in their careers, and as such, the best the Leafs can do is slightly improve with these trades.
Make no mistake - marginal upgrades at the pro level do matter, however adding Rantanen or his equivalent would have made the Leafs the NHL's best team. Therefore, I guess the question that is on my mind is why would the Leafs attempt to make such a splash only to turn around and stick with their safe, risk-adverse approach?
Either way, I don't mind what the Leafs did yesterday - their team looks pretty good, however they could have taken a bigger shot / risk in my opinion. The cost for two safe players who really don't make the team significantly better seems insane to me. I don't mind spending the capital, I just think that they should have gotten a lot more upside for what they spent.
They could still win, but they did not do enough to separate themselves from similar teams. Oh well. We'll get our first chance to see how it looks tonight when they take on the Avalanche.
The Leafs are expected to have Carlo and Laughton in the lineup tonight and Anthony Stolarz is expected to start. My one hope is that after all this, Nick Robertson isn't the odd man out of the lineup tonight.