The Toronto Maple Leafs are not known for their great trade deadline moves, but there are still some pretty important trades that have gone down over the last 25 years.
Last year, the Toronto Maple Leafs elected to add only role players and they more or less sat out the 2024 Trade Deadline, only to lose by one goal in overtime of the seventh game.
As we start heading towards the trade deadline in 2024-25, we have decided to take a look at the top five trades by the Leafs dating back to 2000-01.
Unfortunately, like the 1980s, there was a decade of futility for the Toronto Maple Leafs organization and there was not much to work with. The list will consist of trades that looked to bolster the line-up for a playoff run and does not include trades where they were rebuilding or retooling such as Tomas Kabarle being dealt to the Boston Bruins for a first and second round picks along with a propsect, or the multiple times the club trade Daniel Winnik for picks.
2004 - Toronto Acquires Ron Francis from the Carolina Hurricanes
After reaching the Conference Finals in 2002, the Maple Leafs were bounced in the first round the following season and with a team that had players like Mats Sundin, Alexander Mogilny, Joe Nieuwendyk and Ed Belfour the organization was going all in for a Stanley Cup run in 2004.
With not much time left on the clock before the deadline had come and past, veteran Ron Francis waived his no trade clause to come to Toronto for one last chance at a Stanley Cup. The then 41-year old center was bringing with him over 1,700 career regular season games, an additional 159 playoff contests and pair of Stanley Cup rings.
The cost to acquire the first ballot Hall of Fame center was a fourth round pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft that was later traded to Columbus who used it on enforcer Jared Boll who would go on to play 579 career games, collecting 66 points and 1,298 penalty minutes.
When he was brought in, he was acquired to be the playmaker to the sniping Owen Nolan and while it took him a little bit to get going as he recorded just three assists in his first seven games he caught to finish off the season with three goals and seven points in his final five games.
Francis showed his Selke style of hockey
The pick up proved to be key as Mats Sundin went down with a lower body injury midway through the first round and missed games five through seven. While Francis's offensive numbers wouldn't jump off the chart, he helped shut down the Senators offence that had Martin Havlat, Daniel Alfredsson, Radek Bonk and Jason Spezza combined for one goal over the entire seven game series. Only Marian Hossa had more than one goal on the Senators as they scored just 11 goals over seven games.
Unfortunately, Francis sustained an injury in Game 5 of the second round series that kept him out for Game 6 which knocked the Maple Leafs out of the playoffs and he would never play again.