Toronto Maple Leafs: Three John Tavares trade destinations

No. 1: Utah Hockey Club

If the Utah Hockey Club want to make a splash and establish themselves as a legimate franchise, they could use some firepower and Tavares is a big name to attract a new fanbase. He may not be a top-five player in the world, but he's a former No. 1 overall draft pick and a potential future Hall-of-Famer who new fans will recognize.

As we know, Tavares has to agree to any trade that happens, but with the captaincy switch, we'll assume he's open to that, so Utah could be a fun option for him to join. By joining a new organization, he can establish himself as "the man" again and set himself up for his next contract.

With one year left on his $77M deal, everyone knows that he's not going to fetch $11M AAV on the open-market anymore, but Utah could be willing to pay him something close to that. They still have a lot of cap-space and will be willing to spend on a legitimate star to build that city up, so Tavares could get the most amount of money if he re-signed in Utah.

The return that Toronto would get from a Utah trade is not as good as some other team's offerings, but the biggest thing they would gain is cap-space. His salary cap comes off the books after this year, but they could do a ton of damage at the NHL Trade Deadline this year if they had another $5-10M in salary cap.