How the Toronto Maple Leafs Can End the Summer With 3 Great Moves
The Toronto Maple Leafs can end the summer on a strong note.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have not had a very good summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs failed to add an eilte goalie to help them win during Auston Matthews prime. They have not resolved the Mitch Marner situation to anyone's satisfaction, and their best move comes with a ton or risk and is offset by the loss (and as of yet unreplaced) Tyler Bertuzzi.
On the bright side, the Leafs hired Mark Leech, they brought in Craig Berube and have so far refused ridiculous (and if we are being honest, cult-like mob-mentality non-sense) calls to trade Mitch Marner.
The team looks primed for another shot at the Stanley Cup, but if they want their summer to ultimately be seen as successful, there are three more moves that they have to make.
3 Moves the Toronto Maple Leafs Still Need to Make This Summer
Let's start with the easiest one: Get rid of your worst contract.
The Leafs are. for inexplicable reasons, paying 4th line centre David Kampf $2.4 million. They can't keep doing that. They need to make room on the fourth line for Pontus Holmberg, and could save $1.6 million with no loss of quality to the roster by getting rid of Kampf.
While they are at it, they also need to get rid of Calle Jarkrok, Conor Timmins and Ryan Reaves, but Kampf is the priority.
The next move is slightly harder but is such a no-brainer it really shouldn't be that hard:
Re-sign Mitch Marner to an eight-year contract extention and announce he is moving his position to centre ice.
Marner is one solid playoff run away from being a universally acknowledged top-ten player in the world. His critics (spouting mis-information and easily refute opinions) sound exactly like people who have had their social media algorithm convince them that the earth is flat.
Marner should get a slight raise on his current deal and spend his entire career as the best homegrown talent in franchise history.
The third and final task for GM Brad Treliving this August is to swing a major trade for former second-overall draft pick Patrik Laine.
Laine was recently cleared to resume his NHL career and is available for trade from the Columbus Blue Jackets. I wrote about this in detail on the weekend, but Laine is clearly the missing piece for the Toronto Maple Leafs: a cheap superstar with franchise player upside.
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Treliving has his work cut out for him, but if he brings in Laine, signs Marner and ships out Kampf it will ultimately turn out to have been a great summer for the Toronto Maple Leafs.