Toronto Maple Leafs Seem Extremely Likely to Trade for Noah Hanifin

A Goalie

The Leafs are rumored to be in on Hannifin, and they are definitely going to want to upgrade their 3C position, but more than anything they need a goalie.

Not one person in their right mind wants Martin Jones or Ilya Samsonov even backing up a playoff game. Joseph Woll is injured, and inexperienced, and injury prone, and cannot be relied upon to be the starting goalie in one of Auston Matthews' Prime Seasons.

That makes an upgrade all but inevitable, and as I've mentioned a few times, there are four impact goalies who may or may not be available.

Juuse Saros is the next best thing to trading for a prime Andrei Vasilevskiy and the potential of pairing Auston Matthews with one of the best goalie alive cannot be overlooked. The Leafs should be willing to move almost anything to make this happen.

It would likely cost Matthew Knies and I'd do that in a second.

Cheaper and potentially just as great upgrades include Jacob Markstrom, a current Vezina front-runner, John Gibson a younger-than-you-think potentially franchise altering acquisition, and the former Cup winner Jordan Binnington.

All four would be a massive upgrade to the Leafs Stanley Cup chances. All four would make me forget how bad Brad Treliving has done to date as the Leafs GM.

Hanifn would be great, but the Leafs top priortity needs to be in net.