Trading for Colten Parayko
Probably the most ridiculous of all Trade Deadline suggestions is Colten Parayko.
He is 30 years old and signed for a $6.5 million cap-hit until the year 2030. In 2028 his no-trade clause becomes a no-movement clause, and he's already overpaid compared to what he does. (all cap info capfriendly.com).
Players over 30, at least not ones named Zach Hyman, do not get better.
Parayko once won a Stanley Cup as a member of the St. Louis Blues, and he plays right-defense, so people think he's good, but hockey is a repuation based game and almost no one is looking at the numbers he putting up, which are terrible.
Yeah, the defensive numbers are fine, but since he ranks as one of the worst offensive players in the NHL, that goes to waste. Hockey is a holistic game and any attempts to break it down into seperate individual units of offense and defense do not work.
Known as a defensive defenseman, Parayko currently has a neutral rating on defense, and a negative rating offensively, making him overall a player who hurts his team. (ratings from the Athletic.com Player Cards).
It is a myth that good players will have bad numbers on bad teams - just last year Jake McCabe had excellent numbers despite playing on a team worse than the Blues are today. The facts are that Parayko has just declined heavily since his peak and he's not the player he once was.
St. Louis has lost Parayko's minutes in three of the last four seasons, including each of the last two. He has not finished a season with a positive expected-goals rating, nor been a positive puck-possession player since 2018-19.
That is five seasons of being a negative value player.
Obviously this would be a stupid idea for the Leafs under any circumstances, but what makes it worse is the Leafs current lineup. They already have a group of defenseman who are bad at moving the puck. They played two of the worst defensive players in the NHL in their lineup the last time they played and cannot afford to add a third one to their team.
This is by far the worst idea out there.