5 Great Options for One Big Summer Trade for the Toronto Maple Leafs
By James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a weird situation because while their summer has been extremely underwhelming, they are somehow still one of the top teams in the NHL entering the 2024-25 season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to compete to win the Atlantic Division, President's Trophy and the Stanley Cup.
They should easily be one of the top ten teams, and have a very good shot at being a top five or even the top team.
This is because they have a well balanced blue-line withtwo star players and potentially one top ten defenseman (should the 34 year-old Chris Tanev live up to his billing and stay healthy).
This is also because with Knies, Robertson and McMann, the Leafs have three solid scorers to go along with their core-four + Domi.
Speaking of Domi, he scored at a Franchise Player Level when he was paired with Auston Matthews for approximately 200 minutes last year.
As for the goaltending, you don't know what you're going to get, but based on the team the Leafs can put in front of their goalies, and based on the fact that both Woll and Stolarz appear primed for a breakout, they should be fine.
Of course, there are no guarantees, and the core-four could continue to underwhelm in the playoffs, while Rielly and Tavares and Tanev decline, the rookies disappoint and the goalies let everyone down. But for all that to happen would be a little Mr Burns Softball Team, so I think the Leafs are going to be fine.
The best and worse case scenarios could be extreme, but the most likely situation is that they cruise to the playoffs as a top-ten team.
But, add in another star player (at any position) and the Leafs would be an awesome team. Looking at their current team, they could clearly use at least one major weapon to replace Tyler Bertuzzi without having to count on Easton Cowan being the rookie-of-the-year for that to happen. (all cap info from puckpedia.com).
Here's five options. Please keep in mind that all five of these trades assume the Leafs can get cap space by also shipping out David Kampf, Ryan Reaves, Calle Jarnkrok and Conor Timmins who combine to make about $7 million dollars.