The Top 4 Toronto Maple Leafs Goalie Trade Options
The Toronto Maple Leafs need a goalie, have no choice but to trade for one and so here are their options.
The Toronto Maple Leafs didn't lose in the playoffs this year because of Mitch Marner, despite what a million angry Leafs Fans will tell you.
The Toronto Maple Leafs lost because their GM made the horrendous decision not to trade for a goalie mid-season.
Instead of making the trade pretty much everyone knew he needed to make, Brad Treliving entered the playoffs will Ilya Samsonov, a goalie who went unclaimed on waivers less than three months before the playoffs.
It proved to be the Leafs undoing, as Samsonov was not good and lost the net to Joseph Woll. Unfortunately, Woll is incredibly injury prone and was predictably unable to go in game seven, so the net reverted back to Samsonov and the Leafs lost in overtime on a very savable shot.
In addition to needing a goalie, the Leafs also have the problem of Auston Matthew's Prime.
The Prime of the Best Player in Franchise History cannot be approached lightly. You don't get many kicks at this can. The Leafs know this, and that rules out any chance or the Leafs going with a Joseph Woll + Decent Back-Up tandem.
Woll might yet be an amazing starting goalie, but he's only played 39 career NHL games and seems to be constantly injured. Unfortunately, it is too risky to go with him and someone like Laurent Brossoit, no matter what the rumorus say.
The Leafs recent history and the age of their best player leaves them little choice but to pursue a star goalie.
The Leafs have tried many things over the Auston Matthews Era, but one thing they haven't done is put Matthews and Marner with a top goalie.
Therefore, expect the Toronto Maple Leafs to pursue an elite goalie this summer, likely in the next week. (much of this info from capfriendly.com).
The Top Option
Jusse Saros
Jusse Saros is the top available goalie that the Leafs could concievably trade for.
The Nashville Predators have one of the top goalie prospects in the NHL, Yaroslav Askarov and Saros is 29 and on an expiring contract.
That contract has a cheap $5 million cap-hit, but comes with the expectation of a $10 million-ish extention at the end of next season.
If the Leafs were to trade for Saros, the idea would be to extend him with the money that comes off the books next season when John Tavares contract expires.
For one season, the Leafs would have a Woll/Saros combo for a very cheap $6 million cap-hit.
The reason to trade for Saros is that goalies in the NHL are extremely unpredictable from year to year, and therefore anyone who can spend several years as one of the best goalies in the league becomes an extremely rare commodity.
In the NHL, the best goalies right now are Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy. Neither is available to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After that, the list gets subjective, but Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, Joel Oettinger and Jusse Saros are the four players in teir 2.
After that, things get pretty blurry, but you've got Jacob Markstrom, Thatcher Demko, Jordan Binnington, John Gibson, Fred Andersen and then Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark (though they are a tandem pair and who knows what you'd get with just one of them).
Jusse Saros is the closest thing the Leafs can get to a top goalie and should be their top priority.
Jordan Binnington
The new Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube won a Stanley Cup with Jordan Binnington.
It's possible that Binnington gets overrated because he won a Stanley Cup, but given how random goalie performance, it does make sense to value goalies who have proven they can win at least slightly more than goalies who haven't.
Binnington comes with attitude problems and baggage, but I don't think its fair to discount him for that since it's the kind of attitude and confidence that is amazing when you win and kind of gross when you don't. It might not be the most likable thing, but it probably is what allows him to hit the heights that he's hit.
Binnington is only 30 and if you take out the 2021-22 and 2022-23 season, is career is absolutely stellar. I think also that two bad seasons really speaks to the volatility of the goalie position than a fault in Binnington himself.
Binnington has a no-trade clause and three season left at $6 million per. I think his age and his contract make him pretty desirable to the Leafs.
If he can be had for a reasonable cost, he would be an ideal fit for the Leafs. Whether or not he's available is up in the air, but the Blues don't seem like their in a position to compete so he probably could be had.
If the cost of Markstrom is a bad defenseman and a low-pick, the cost to trade for Binnington should be more than reasonable.
Linus Ullmark
Linus Ullmark has posted incredible numbers over the last two NHL seasons.
He won the Vezina Trophy last year, and it's only because he split the net with Jeremy Swayman that he wasn't at least nominated for it this year.
He's only 30 and appears to be one of the few goalies available who is an upper echelon starter.
Based on his statistics and success over the last two seasons, he would be the Leafs top priortiy if not for the completly unpredictable performance of goalies at the pro level.
Ullmark never had any success before he got to Boston, and so it's extremely risky to pay for him and then find out that it was Boston's system that made the goalies look so great.
The Leafs could just take the chance anyways, I wouldn't be against it, but every other goalie on this list has success playing on bad teams, and Ullmark doesn't.
I would still rank him as the Leafs top priority if I thought the cost to acquire him would be reasonable, but I don't.
I think Ullmark is the most expensive to acquire goalie, and that the Bruins might not even want to trade him to their biggest rivals.
Therefore, I rank Jusse Saros and Jordan Binnington as better options, but only slightly. If the cost to get Ullmark was in the range of what the Devils paid to get Markstrom, I'd move him into a tie with Saros as the best goalie the Leafs could target.
John Gibson
Is there a player that has been linked to the Toronto Maple Leafs longer and more frequently than John Gibson has been?
It seems that as long as John Gibson has been in the NHL, that the Toronto Maple Leafs were immenently going to acquire his services.
So far it hasn't worked out, but this could be the year.
Gibson is a wildcard on this list because he's so incredibly talented but has been on a horrible team for so long that everyone has pretty much forgetten him.
But he's only 30 and if he was on the Leafs, who knows, maybe he would get back that early charisma that had people calling him one of the best goalies alive five years ago.
Gibson would be slightly risky, but not so risky as going with a Brossoit / Woll tandem or something even stupider like signing Cam Talbot.
The cost to acquire him would likely be low, and he'd probably be available since the Ducks aren't going to be competing for a while yet.
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In conclusion, the Leafs don't have much choice - they need a top goalie more than any other team in the NHL, and there are only four real options. If the Leafs don't end the summer with one of these four players on their roster, the summer was a massive failure.