What can the Maple Leafs trade? What should they trade?
What might the Maple Leafs at any point exchange? What would it be advisable for them to exchange?
We have invested a lot of energy looking at the sorts of players (defencemen!) the Maple Leafs may be keen on securing through exchange. On the other hand, we have spent less time explaining exactly what they need to trade to acquire those players before the March 8 trade deadline.
With the 27th-positioned prospect pool, in The Athletic’s assessment, and an entire pack of draft picks exchanged as of now, the Leafs aren’t spilling over with exchange resources.
Matthew Knies is one name contradicting GMs will without a doubt have orbited. Knies has played so well however and flaunts such captivating potential gain that he’s probably a total off limits for the Brendan Shanahan-Brad Treliving front office.
too important right now. Excessively significant later on.
What could this group at any point move? What would it be advisable for it to move? Honestly, we’re discussing the group’s top resources, the ones different groups might esteem and the Leafs can (perhaps) bear to exchange. ( Which precludes the striving Ilya Samsonov.)
Let’s begin.
2024 first-round pick
The unavoidable issue here: Do the Leafs, under another GM, need to exchange another first-adjust pick?
The group clutched their top pick in 2023 yet managed their 2025 first-rounder to Chicago (alongside a second in 2026) for Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty. This group has picked in the principal round in just two of the last five drafts, landing Easton Cowan (2023) and the late Rodion Amirov (2020). For this front office, sending out another top pick with one already gone in 2025 might be too much. Yet, could they rather give one of their better quality possibilities given how restricted that pool seems, by all accounts, to be right now? This group has no second-rounders in the following three drafts.
In that lies one of the more troublesome equilibriums for the front workplaces of NHL competitors to strike: What amount representing things to come is a lot to forfeit?
Dennis Hildeby
An AHL hero up to this point this season and unexpectedly, a promising goalie prospect to one day follow (perhaps) in Joseph Woll’s strides. At 6-foot-7, Hildeby, who is only 22, is a monster. The Leafs may not be all that distant from a completely local wrinkle of Woll and Hildeby. However, the Leafs may be able to afford to move Hildeby if Woll is the real deal (still unknown) and one of Artur Akhtyamov or Vyacheslav Peksa can hit. Err, perhaps not? This group has a not-entirely ideal history of exchanging promising goalie possibilities. Additionally, Hildeby hasn’t appeared in a lot of games for the Marlies. As such, his stock, while rising, is not really settled as of now.
Fraser Minten and Easton Cowan
The Leafs’ two best forward possibilities, apparently, are playing for Group Canada at the world youngsters. Should the Leafs bargain possibly one? Knies is showing exactly the way in which important energetic commitments can be. Besides the fact that he playing in is the group’s most memorable line right now (and flourishing), but on the other hand he’s making ELC cash ($925,000 for this season and next). That is really useful to a group that will just see the sticker prices of the stars (short John Tavares) ascend in ongoing years. That is the very thing will make Minten and Cowan so unappealing to the Leafs as exchange resources. Both, especially Minten, probably won’t be all that distant from contributing — and contributing for inexpensively. Minten likely could be the third-line focus next season and could on the off chance that the offense goes along, become a feasible long haul 2C trade for Tavares.
Minten and Cowan both established solid connections at instructional course; Minten looked older than his years as Cowan moved about, and he even made the team. Both players are unlikely to be traded by the Leafs. Be that as it may, assuming that you’re a restricting GM and the Leafs desire something you have, isn’t this where you could begin?
2024 third-, fourth-and fifth-round picks
It’s not difficult to excuse the third-rounder the following summer, yet the Leafs got Luke Schenn with one such pick the previous spring. They handled this specific third from the Islanders when they changed out of the Pierre Engvall experience. It’s not nothing. It won’t be sufficient to bring Chris Tanev yet it ought to be all that anyone could need for say, Ilya Lyubushkin. The Leafs have three fifth-rounders to bargain as well, any of which may be basic resource stuffing in some bigger exchange, for a compensation maintenance sugar maybe.
Scratch Robertson
Two inquiries with Robertson: Do the Leafs still have faith in his potential? How much worth could he have as an exchange chip?
Still only 22, Robertson has been alright in his longest-enduring NHL opportunity. He has remained beneficial to this point, urgently, and put a few focuses on the board. Lead trainer Sheldon Keefe actually doesn’t seem to trust him so much, playing Robertson sparingly most evenings. That is to be expected; Robertson isn’t in fact a new kid on the block yet he’s actually a tenderfoot. Robertson has attempted to have his chance off and battled, all the more unsurprisingly, to have his chance off nearby other people. His work is never being referred to, however the absence of size and game-crushing pace hold him spirit. He likewise plays no part in the show of dominance.
We referenced the requirement for modest youthful advances and Robertson, making just shy of $800,000 this season, squeezes into that. He won’t be attracting a lot of attention as he bids on a new contract this summer. That is reason to the point of keeping him around, if, that is to say, the Leafs actually put stock in his potential gain. Do they actually figure he can develop into a valuable center six forward in a season finisher setup?
Robertson is unlikely to be included in the postseason lineup next spring because Treliving did not select him. He’s nonessential in the present.
Do different groups put stock in his potential gain? Robertson has played not many games as of late that it’s difficult to see him bragging a ton esteem.
Topi Niemelä
Moving pucks and piling up focuses essentially consistently, Niemelä is getting things going for the Marlies in his most memorable full AHL season. He’s just 21, and he’s the best possibility the Leafs have right now on guard.
Beside Timothy Liljegren (still in some way just 24), the Leafs are getting up there in age toward the back; indeed, even Morgan Rielly will be 30 in Spring. To put it plainly, this group isn’t far away from requiring an imbuement of youth at that position.
The focal inquiry is whether Treliving, a legitimate promoter of size toward the back, trusts that somebody as little as Niemelä (6 feet and 179 pounds), can assume a part for this group from now on, especially in the end of the season games. The Leafs, under Kyle Dubas, turned off a player with a comparable range of abilities and comparative size worries in Rasmus Sandin the previous spring. Sandin was more full grown than Niemelä when he brought the Leafs a first-round pick (and Erik Gustafsson) from Washington.
What sort of return could Niemelä net at this stage in his vocation? Could he at any point be the piece in an exchange for more instant assistance or simply a piece?
2026 first-round pick
The option in contrast to managing a first-gather pick that will meet up before long is giving one that will come up later. The allure for this course is clear: A possibility picked in 2026 is probably not going to turn into a possibility for the NHL group until what — 2029? 2030? A different universe from this point at the end of the day. The program will look totally different by then, at that point. So could the front office.
Naturally, the risk is that the pick will become more valuable and the team will be worse when it is due. The main players presently under agreement for the 2025-26 season, the one going before the pick that is: Auston Matthews, David Kämpf, Calle Järnkrok, Rielly, and uh, Ryan Reaves. Naturally, that group could also include Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and possibly a different star who takes on some or all of Tavares’ salary. The Leafs’ metal will have a very smart thought of where the 2024 pick will land if they somehow happened to exchange it soon. Less so for the 2026 pick.
Pontus Holmberg
Holmberg is the sort of player that contradicting front workplaces ought to push to remember for an exchange with the Leafs. Although not the primary component, it is still a component. Why?
- Holmberg is just 24.
- Holmberg makes barely anything — a cap hit of $800,000 for this season and next, after which he stays in group control as a limited free specialist.
- Holmberg is a middle who demonstrated he could play some in the NHL whenever given the open door last season.
Kämpf’s fall into the fourth-line focus position has killed Holmberg’s chance with the Leafs, however somewhere else, in a more regrettable group, he would endlessly play a larger number of minutes than will be accessible any time soon in Toronto. Kämpf, recall, is finished paperwork for three additional seasons after this one. Do the Leafs figure Holmberg might one day at any point jump him and become the sort of 3C who protects and delivers some offense? That feels like a stretch, however Holmberg delivered at a 29-point pace for the Leafs last season playing fourth-line minutes.
I think Holmberg is a NHL player and can see it occurring for him — a la Carl Grundstrom, a la Trevor Moore — in the event that he goes somewhere else.
