Jake McCabe is the Toronto Maple Leafs best trade chip

The Toronto Maple Leafs blue-line was partially rebuilt this off-season and while the team did OK in the short-term, this came with some extreme long term risk because of the age of the Leafs four highest paid defenseman.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs want to improve, they will have to get younger, faster and insert a player into the blue-line who has higher potential than their lone defenseman on the roster who has not already played his best season.

I have what I think is a smart, creative way in which the Leafs can achieve this.

The Leafs are due to make a trade since their GM is yet to make a significant one in over 15 months on the job, so this is what they should do:

A Trade the Toronto Maple Leafs need to make

At the peak of his value and with the best reputation he's ever had since breaking into the NHL over a decade ago, and with an absolute sweet-heart of a deal, the Leafs should capitalize and trade Jake McCabe right now.

McCabe is a good player and a very solid second pairing player. He is versitile, he hits, and he's good defensively. The only thing stopping him from being a top-pairing player are his sub-par puck handling skills which sometimes lead to bad errors top players aren't supposed to make.

McCabe was acquired with double-retention, so his cap hit is only $2 million, which allows him to be incredibly valuable. The Leafs can't afford to give a big raise to an aging defenseman with limited puck moving skills and who is sure to decline in the coming years, so they might as well get something for him now.

In my opinion, McCabe is an underrated trade option for the Leafs and their best trade chip overall. He's extremely valuable because of his cap hit and reputation, but since he's not a star player it's not like losing him would have a major impact. This is definitely one of those situations where the Leafs could capitalize on a player's name-brand recognition instead of paying for it.

The trick here is to make two separate trades because a team that thinks McCabe will put them over the top won't be inclined to give the win-now Maple Leafs the player they need, which is a young NHL ready defenseman with higher upside than Timothy Liljegren and Topi Niemela.

Would the Oilers pay a first round pick and a prospect and a later pick for Jake McCabe if the Leafs took back Evander Kane? I bet something like that could get done.

The Leafs then put Kane on the LTIR with no intention of ever playing him (but importantly saving Edmonton over ten million American dollars in real actual money), and take the assets they got from Edmonton and flip them to a team with a defenseman they are interested in.

For my money, that team should be the New York Islanders and that player should be Noah Dobson. He needs a huge new deal after next season but for now he makes $4 million the Leafs could deal with just by including Jarnkrok and Kampf in the deal. The Islanders are a mess and they might not be able to fit in a huge contract so maybe they would considering traing him for a huge package of picks and prospects.

It is not unusual, at least in other sports, for players in Dobson's situation to be dealt. If the Leafs pick up a first for McCabe, they could theoretically offer two first round picks, and perhaps even offer to make their own one un-protected and far enough out that the Islanders would gamble.

For the chance to add Dobson, the Leafs could afford to pretty much meet whatever demands the Islanders had beyond the two first round picks. The Leafs are short on assets and flipping McCabe to a contender and using the assets to build a package for an even better player is an example of the kind of smart, creative move they should be thinking about.