The Toronto Maple Leafs should look down the hallway to the team that they share an arena with and also get aggressive at the Trade Deadline.
If you're a sports fan, you're absolutely loving what's going on in the NBA right now. After multiple reports that viewership was down, everybody has tuned back in to see what Luka Donic will do with the LA Lakers or what Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry will do in Golden State. Even the Toronto Raptors who should be rebuilding were getting in on the fun by acquiring Brandon Ingram.
If the NHL wants to gain new viewers or match that NBA attention online, they need more trades. Just look what happened with the Mikko Rantanen deal two weeks ago. Everyone was talking about that blockbuster acquisition, then it was completely out shadowed by the NBA a few days later.
The NFL's season has come to a close, the MLB doesn't start fora nother two months and the NBA Trade Deadline has came and gone, so it's time for the NHL to capitalize.
First and foremost, if you want to get people buzzing about your league, Sidney Crosby needs to be traded immediately. Imagine the reaction if the three-time Stanley Cup winner and arguably best player of the past 25 years was finally moved from Pittsburgh?
It wouldn't be as shocking as the Donic trade to LA, because nobody saw that coming, and Crosby rumors have been floating for years, but nobody actually thinks Crosby will get traded. Everyone assumes that Crosby is going to retire with the Penguins, so Sid The Kid changing teams at this point in his career would be be front-page news.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Learn From the NBA
I doubt the Leafs would be able to acquire him, but from the Leafs perspective, they need to get creative and make a big splash like the NBA. In the NBA, big names get traded every year and the Leafs can learn from this. They have the ability to make a huge acquisition by trading someone like Morgan Rielly or Mitch Marner this year.
If the team moved on from both of those players, it would free $18M in cap-space to do whatever they wanted. Imagine a blockbuster move that sent Marner to the NY Rangers for Artemi Panarin? If this was the NBA, that trade probably would have happened already.
The NHL has unfortunately never worked as a league where big name's get traded midseason. If anything, it's usually a trade near the NHL Entry Draft, but those seem like common. However, I'm optimistic that the NHL and the Leafs can make a huge splash this year because of the salary-cap increasing.
I'd love nothing more than to wake up to a 5-player trade involving the Leafs, so let's hope something big can happen soon.