The Toronto Maple Leafs have limited cap space and because they've already spend their 2025 first and fourth round picks, as well as their 2026 second, fourth and seventh, and because they do not have any of the game's top prospects in their system, they are extremely limited with what they can do at the trade deadline.,
And yet, the team's GM can't just sit the day out when two of his rivals have already gotten significantly better. When the NHL Trade Deadline passes, if the Toronto Maple Leafs aren't significantly better than they are today, then they will once again have wasted a season of Auston Matthew's prime.
Treliving's bumbling and risk-adverse nature destroyed any chance the Leafs had of advancing last year when they came within one goal of doing so despite their GM's choice to mostly sit out Trade Deadline Day.
He's got no choice but to do better this time around. Let's look at how he can do so.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Trade Deadline Playbook - What They Need to Do and Why
Needs:
The Toronto Maple Leafs need depth scoring, 2 x centres, a top-four defenseman, and a depth defenseman. They also have a fairly bad bottom-six and could upgrade there as well.
That said, they aren't changing half their roster in mid-season, and have limited resources to do so anyways. So what they need to do is make one big move and adjust the rest of their lineup so that they can cover for the areas they aren't going to be able to improve.
Internal Moves
1. Nylander, Matthews, Marner on different lines. This stretches the lineup and allows the Leafs to almost always have a franchise player on the ice. It also allows them to get by without adding some mid-range centre who won't move the needle.
2. Move OEL to the third pairing.
3. Demote/Trade/Waive Reaves, Dewar, Myers, Benoit and Timmins.
4. Call up Kokkenen or Niemela to play on the third pairing. This will give the Leafs the ability to move the puck better from the back-end and improve their scoring. It's not like these guys are tearing up the AHL, but the Leafs could use some quiet, effective, puck movers. The Leafs are already employing negative value players on their third pairing, so this move has upside only - they can't be any worse than Benoit and at least they can move the puck better.
5. Domi on wing with Matthews. Not only is this the best use of Domi, but it eliminates the need to float the third line with a bunch of ozone draws that aren't then going to the best players.
New Lines Before Additions
First Line: Knies- Matthews- Domi/McMann. By having a top line without Marner on it, the Leafs become twice as hard to play because now he's on another line that used to stink but now features a franchise player.
Second Line: Robertson/McMann - Tavares - Nylander. This line gets the easiest minutes and should dominate. Note that McMann is a wildcard here, he can be on either line, and the Leafs basically have three guys for two positions.
Third Line: Jarnkrok - Kampf - Marner. This line can hard-match other team's top lines and still score. When a goal is needed, Marner moves up. McMann can fill in here for Jarnkrok too if he can't come back or isn't effective when he does. McMann isn't exactly great on defene, but he's got speed so think he'd be fine with Kampf and Marner, even in a defensive role.
Fourth Line: Pacioretty - Steeves - Lorentz - good, gritty line that can score. None of these guys can play above the fourth line effectively, but they might just be a very strong fourth line that mixes hitting with a bit of scoring.
These lines make is so that the Leafs do not need to trade for a forward. They are also significantly better than anything Berube has yet tried.
The blue-line is better because OEL/Kokkonen should have no trouble winning their 3rd pairing minutes, Tanev/McCabe is the best second-pairing in hockey and all that would be left would be to get a partner for Morgan Rielly to create a quality top-pairing worthy of a Cup Contender.
Trade Deadline Action
Instead of needing a whole bunch of additions, and instead of making several low-impact moves, the Leafs can now deal for one thing: a top pairing defenseman.
Getting rid of Dewar and Reaves will allow the Leafs to dress Jarnkrok under the cap. If they ditch Benoit for Kokkonen they'll save a little bit, and would clear over a million by ditching Timmins.
That doesn't give them a lot of wiggle room, so they are going to have to search for something similar to when they got Jake McCabe on a $2 million cap-hit due to double-retention.
What defenseman should they target? It's got to be someone on par with adding JT Miller or Mikko Rantanen. Double-Retained elder ex-superstars from non-playoff teams like Roman Josi, Seth Jones and Erik Karlsson are decent, but not great, options.
Bowan Byram is probably the dream, along with Noah Dobson. Either would give the Leafs a legit number-one and make a massive impact. Both play for non-playoff teams, though both carry injury risks. Less exciting but still a good idea, likely, would be Vince Dunn of Utah.
Anyway, we'll see what happens. this is what the Leafs should do. Will they do it? That remains to be seen.