The Toronto Maple Leafs gave up on 2x top-four defenseman much too early

The Toronto Maple Leafs blue-line is middle of the pack, in decline, and locked in for years and years.

Unless the Toronto Maple Leafs manage to win the Stanley Cup right away, their poorly thought out blue-line is going to be an anchor around their neck preventing them from competing during the back half of Auston Matthew's career.

The main trouble with the Leafs blue-line is that they don't have an elite, top-pairing, number-one guy in a star-driven league, which is a huge, likely insurmountable, problem.

A second problem is that they have no youth, which means they have no upside. They did, once upon a time. They actually had two guys, both first round picks who drastically exceeded their draft-position to become top-four NHL defenseman.

But because of a misguided organizational preference for experience and size, the Leafs punted on the two best defenseman they have developed in the last 25 years. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

The Toronto Maple Leafs gave up on 2x top-four defenseman much too early

Of course, we are talking about Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin.

The Leafs made the terrible decision to trade Liljegren last week, and so far in two games he has some pretty nice numbers from the Sharks third pairing, and he'll no doubt be in their top-four before too long.

The thing about Liljegren that is so troubling is that last year he played a ton in the Leafs top-four and put up unassailable numbers. During one Rielly injury, he ascended to the top pairing for about 15 games and scored nearly a ponit per game.

200 games into his career, his team wins his minutes when he's on the ice. You can't ask for more. Especially when you play on a team with a bunch of declining players and are the only one with upside. The trade was stupid from the Leafs perspective.

A better trade - because Easton Cowan is such a good player - was the one that sent Rasmus Sandin to the Capitals. Only problem? The Leafs have four superstars, Max Domi, and Matthew Knies. They don't really need Cowan as much as they need, say a top-pairing defenseman who can move the puck and has upside.

That guy? Rasmus Sandin, is crushing it in Washington. Right after the trade, he exploded for nearly a point per game, and while the peripherals were pretty rough last year, he was on a bad team (playoffs or not) and still scored at a reasonable 30 point pace.

This year, Sandin is doing fantastic. Playing right now on what is listed as the second pairing with Matt Roy, Sandin is putting up solid numbers all around. Before Roy returned from injury, he was playing mostly with Trevor Van Riemsdyk and his numbers will likely get even better with Roy.

The Capitals are winning his minutes 13-9 and he's posting a fantastic 55% expected goals rating and is tilting the ice in his team's favor every time he's out there. He also has five assists in 12 games, which is good.

It's too bad the Leafs never got to deploy a Sandin-Liljegren pairing regularly. They'd be a better team right now. Trading young defenseman almost never pays off. Especially when you're trying to "win now" and you have traded 2 x top-four defenseman for draft picks while icing what is, at best, the 15th best blue-line in hockey.