The Toronto Maple Leafs will play twice more before the NHL Trade Deadline, which is on Friday.
First they will play Buffalo tomorrow, then on Thursday they'll take on the Boston Bruins, but the results shouldn't factor into what the Toronto Maple Leafs need to do.
It is clear to everyone what the Leafs need:
A goalie - Joseph Woll is a rookie coming off of a major injury, and who appears to be injury prone. Ilya Samsonov is terrible and shouldn't be anywhere near the team come playoff time, therefore a goalie is a necessity.
The only question is if they get a no-doubt starter and use Woll as a back-up, or they just acquire somebody to replace Samsonov and go with a duo. I'm fine with either, but I don't see how they can pass up the opportunity to trade for Juuse Saros if he's available.
The second thing the Leafs need is a centre to replace Max Domi who, despite his popularity, is a replacement player who is overpaid at $3 million by about $2 million. It's clear that Max Domi is a liability and the most obvious place to upgrade the forwards.
The third thing, and really, this could just as easily be ranked #1, is a defenseman who can move the puck. Hopefully it's a superstar who can usurp Morgan Rielly and push him into a more suitable #2 role, but at the very least it must be an above average puck-mover because the Leafs blue-line is horrendous at moving the puck and only got worse last week.
Anyways, with that in mind here are three things the Leafs need to avoid heading into Friday.