How to Fix the Toronto Maple Leafs in 3 Easy Trades
By James Tanner
How to Fix the Toronto Maple Leafs in 3 Easy Trades
The first and most important trade is for the Leafs weakest position: goalie.
You simply cannot rely on Joseph Woll to be your starter because he only averaged about 20 games, total, over the last three years before this one.
He's a rookie, and he's injury prone.
The Toronto Maple Leafs basically do not have a goalie right now. There is one obvious solution.
He's 30 years old.
He's signed for 3 years after this one, at a reasonable $6 million cap-hit.
He has a Stanley Cup, and his current team is behind the Arizona Coyotes in the standings, so he's likely available.
I'm talking Jordan Binnington.
As a bonus, goalies don't tend to cost very much, so it's likely the Leafs could do this and still have some assets left over to improve their team elsewhere.
Binnington makes $6 million dollars, and Pavel Buchnevich makes $5.8 (signed through next season), which is just under $12 million.
To cover that, the Leafs could send Ilya Samsonov ($3m) and TJ Brodie ($5m) with the Blues retaining the rest. The Leafs would need St. Louis to retain $4 million to make it totally equal. The motivation for the Blues here is that all the Leafs contracts expire this year, while both Blues deals continue on into the future, so they stand to save significant future money and cap space.
To further incentivize the Blues, the Leafs could send them defensive prospect Mikko Kokkonen and a 2026 first round pick. I think the money the Leafs are saving them makes it a fair deal, but if other assets are needed, and they might be, add until you have a deal.
The Leafs now have an NHL goalie on their roster, and a first line left-winger.