The Toronto Maple Leafs need major upgrades at forward and on the blue-line ahead of Monday's Trade Deadline.
According to the rumours, the Toronto Maple Leafs are pursuing only minor upgrades in the form of Luke and Brayden Schenn.
Both players are old and both players are nothing more, at this point, than replacement level players. Unfortunately, the Brad Treliving Era has been marked by a reliance on safe name-brand aquisitions and the Schenn's fit Tre's M.O to a tee.
But if the Leafs pursue this path, they will lose. Brayden Schenn is a bad defensively player who loses his minutes and scores about the same amount as Pacioretty and Domi (i.e not enough). Luke Schenn is older, slower and if based on skill and merit wouldn't even crack the Leafs current top-six. He's done, but he's got a famous name so unimaginitive assume he'll help.
The Leafs do not lack for grit or playoff-style players. Their weakness is 5v5 scoring and the ability to move the puck quickly up the ice - two things the Schenn's will make them worse at.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Season Is Over If They Don't Improve on their Rumours
I think this is what's going on: The NHL Media World is filled up with people competing for eye-balls on screens and the best way to get those eye-balls is to be credible and the best way to be credible is to be the one who is right about the trades that go down. So we are inundated with a whole bunch of people pushing "realistic" trades.
The Leafs have shown a tendency to make safe, unimaginative plays for previously good name-brand players, they have very little in the way of cap space or non-controversial trade assets for expensive name-brand players, so the Schenn's are the perfect fit.
This leads to people writing about them a lot because they want to guess correctly and creates a kind of a cycle of nonsense whereby the Leafs end up linked only to minor upgrades that are easly attainable and seem very realistic.
But that doesn't help anyone when the team in question is desperate for a season-saving expert-level acquisition of a star player that no one saw coming. It's going to take a creative, high-risk trade to get the Leafs were they need to be.
I have to credit the most famous of all my peers working in the Toronto Maple Leafs field right now, and that is non other than Nick Kypreos. Kypper is just about the only one doing this who is immune to what anyone thinks of him, so maybe that's why he's the only one not pushing a Schenn-Level Disaster. He doesn't have to try and be right, and as such he's the only mainstream guy making any sense right now.
Kypreos suggested that the Leafs will only win if they make a massive play and acquire someone like Mikko Rantanen. That's what I've been saying all along. Not Rantanen specifically, just the need for a move on that level.
Kypreos is right: the East is wide open, there are great players available (Dobson, Rantanen) and the Leafs can't settle for scraps. They have a chance to make a huge play to really give themselves a real chance to win.
If not now, when?