Toronto Maple Leafs Rival Trade Grades
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't made a trade, but their rivals have.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have not made a trade, but several of their rivals have recently gotten into the action.
The Toronto Maple Leafs current GM, Brad Treliving, is yet to make a significant trade since taking the reins of the franchise from Kyle Dubas, who lost out when he seemingly made a play for his bosses job and is now running the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Treliving has made minor trades involving draft picks and replacement players like Connor Dewar and Joel Edmundson, but he hasn't swung a significant deal since he was running the Calgary Flames. It's worth asking if he's afraid to pull the trigger since his last trade sent Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers and did more to help them win the Stanley Cup than anything else.
It is understandable to lack confidence when your last team stinks and the last trade you made won the Stanley Cup for the GM you made it with. But if Treliving hopes to become a successful NHL executive, he's got to get back on that horse and swing for the fences.
While he twiddles his thumbs, other NHL teams are getting ready for the upcoming NHL season. This week we saw trades between the Montreal Canadiens and Columbus Blue Jackets, as well as one between the Penguins and the Winnipeg Jets.
The Leafs could definitely have used Patrik Laine, as they have an annual problem with depth scoring. Picking up Laine and converting Marner to centre would have allowed the Leafs to stretch their stars across three lines, but it would give them four of the best shooters in the NHL in Laine, Matthews Nylander and Robertson, and give them so many options and so many places to hide elite shooters in their lineup it would have been wild to watch.
Unfortunately, they are not that smart or creative and seem content to do basic things that are safe and offer very little upside.
Oh well, all we have to do is wait it out because barring an incredibly unlikely Stanley Cup run, the Leafs are very likely to get new management next season. As for now, other teams are out there having fun and making moves, so...
Let's grade em!
Toronto Maple Leafs Rival Trade Grades
The first trade of the week saw the Canadiens acquire Patrik Laine from the Blue Jackets and get paid to do so! The Habs recieved Laine and a second round pick to take the 26 year old former second overal pick and his nearly $9 million dollar contract.
To acquire Laine, who has 50 goal potential if he's healthy, the Canadiens only gave up Jordan Harris, a left handed defenseman roughly equal to the Leafs trading Timothy Liljgren. I wouldn't hate it if the Leafs got a 2nd round pick for Liljegren at this point, let alone a 50 goal lottery ticket.
The Canadiens are unlikely to compete for much during the two remaining years on Laine's contract and so the best thing they could do here is shelter him at 5v5 and give him as much power-play time as he can handle, then flip him at the deadline for even more assets. This is exactly what they did with Sean Monohan, ironically signed by the poorly run Blue Jackets.
The Canadiens get an A+ here for improving their roster today, adding a bonus draft pick for tomorrow, adding a potential lottery ticket which they can either use or cash in for nearly no risk, since they weren't hoping to compete this year and had the cap space.
This is just a smart move from every angle for Montreal. As for Columbus, they paid to give a way a potentially elite player and get out of $18 million dollars in real cash and cap-hit. It just looks cheap. If they wanted to make their team better they wouldn't give away draft picks to save money, they'd eat that money and get paid for it.
The Blue Jackets get an F for being cheap. A smarter team would have worked out a double-retention move and traded Laine to a contender for actual assets.
McGroarty for Yager
The Jets traded Rutger McGroarty to the Penguins for Brayden Yager.
Interestingly, each of these players was seleceted 14th overall, McGroarty in 2022 and Yager in 2023. Further investigation shows that this is a pretty fair trade.
The Jets trade a player who, for whatever reason, hadn't signed an entry-level deal with the team that drafted him, while the Penguins trade their top prospect for a guy who is more or less projected to be around the same level and who instantly becomes their new top prospect.
On the surface it seems like a weird trade, but there is actually method to each team's madness. The Jets clearly trade a player they can't use for one they presumably can and are happy with the deal.
The Penguins get a player who is one year older and one year closer to being NHL ready, so they probably come out on top here. I mean, it's useless to try to predict which one of these players will end up having the better career, but the Penguins could use sandpaper and a winger in their current lineup and McGroarty will provide both.
Therefore, because he fits their needs and all it cost them was a similarly ceilinged player who likely couldn't make their roster this season the Penguins get an A.
The Jets didn't get any worse and probably aren't hurting for a winger to make their team this second anyways, so they get an A too. Everybody wins.
Except the Leafs who may or may not even be aware these trades went down! Time to wake up boys!