We can all yell and scream about Toronto Maple Leafs trade rumours, but nothing will matter until this team trades for a number-one defenseman.
When you look at the current Toronto Maple Leafs rumours, there are lots of different names floating around such as Brayden Schenn, Pat Maroon, Alex Kerfoot, Noah Dobson, Bowen Byram and Scott Laughton, to name a few. As much as Byram and Dobson would be number-one defensemen for this team, are they the true definition of that?
When I look at past NHL champions or current juggernauts in the league, they always have a workhorse on the blue-line who can eat up 30 minutes. Not only that, but they usually provide a lot of offense and are one of the leaders of the team. Can Dobson and Byram really be that player?
Well Dobson had 70 points last year, so he's clearly a no.1, but that doesn't mean he's elite compared to guys like Heiskanen or Makar or Hughes.
Leafs Need To Aquire a Legitimate Number-One Defenseman
If we just look back at the past few years of Stanley Cup winners, most of them have that number-one defenseman, who never wants to come off the ice. Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning), Cale Makar (Colorado Avalanche) and Alex Pietrangelo (Vegas Golden Knights) were all leaders for their team and a huge reason why they all won the Stanley Cup.
You could argue that the Leafs are somewhat built like the Panthers, who had Gus Forsling, Brandon Montrour and Aaron Ekblad, but no truly elite defenseman. The problem is that the Leafs don't have anyone like Tkachuk/Bennet, so they may not be able to get by without the truly elite defenseman like Florida did.
The Leafs have Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe and Morgan Rielly, who are three fine defenseman, but that's not good enough to win 16 games in the playoffs.
The Leafs have a lot of great forwards and one of the worst blue-lines out of any competitive team. They don't have an elite minute eater like Hedman and they aren't likely to win until they get one. Vegas has three defenseman better than anyone on the Leafs. Every top team, even the ones like Florida who don't necessarily have a truly elite defenseman, has a better blue-line than they do.
It's a lot harder said than done to trade for a legitimate no.1 defenseman of the Bouchard/Makar/Hedman variety, but Vegas was able to trade for Hanifin, so it is possible to get a top-pairing guy.
The Leafs question for the Leafs is "are they good enough to win without a truly elite defenseman?" because a best-case scenario is Noah Dobson and I'm wondering if even that would be enough.