It looks like the Leafs, thanks to a series of drafts in which they drafted high and took the best available player and that was a high-end forward, they are now a better version of the Oilers circa 2016. The whole hockey world could see they needed to do something to balance out their team. Of course, what they did was not advisable, but there's no doubt Hall for Larsson balanced the team in a big way.
I was just spitballing with a friend the other night. Not necessarily an advocate for any of this but if you want to do something radical and realistic to reshape the team almost immediately, how about this:
- Matthews for Aho and Slavin
(there are going to be wildly divergent opinions on who should say no for this trade, but it makes sense in a number of ways. Toronto gets a stud #1 D that brings exactly what they've lacked for decades. They get a great, but not franchise center back. They get back players who are better salary cap values. I realize that when you're talking about a player of Matthews' caliber, the value of the player on the ice, in a trade, and what you have to expect to pay them goes up exponentially, so by no means do I think Matthews is just 11% better than Aho because he's 11% more productive over the past two seasons combined; those extra goals are the gravy on what would otherwise be a good steak. Carolina gets a truly game-breaking scorer like they have literally never had in their franchise's history. They have an incredibly strong defense corps. They are probably the only team in the league where you could completely remove their #1 and they could still claim to be above average in the league. This costs us about 1.5M on the cap in total).
- Sign UFA Pietrangelo (7 years, 9M)
(it's not that I advocate signing a 30 year old for 7 years, but let's be honest, someone will give him 7 years so we will have to. We can at least afford to front load it so that it's easier to move as he hits 35+. Pietrangelo has always been a truly elite player and has never stopped being one. He's going to be great for a few years still. He's the most accomplished PK defenseman of this generation. He's the proverbial "good Ontario boy" who you can imagine would like to come here. He's a righty.)
- Ceci and Barrie walk
(replaced by Sandin and Lilljegren as full-time players. We can disagree on how ready those two players are, but if they're just getting 3rd pairing and 2nd PP duty to the tune of about 15-16 sheltered minutes a game, they can handle that at their ages. You might be wondering, what about Holl and Dermott? You're right, they are both NHL players too, even if they're nothing special. For starters, there's nothing wrong with having 8 good defensemen. You can expect one of them to be injured at any time, so we have 7. Then you just swap them out as needed throughout the season. If one proves to be a problem - i.e. they don't like being shuffled in and out, they prove to be too good to be a rotating 5-6-7, then they are an asset we can trade. Ceci and Barrie's salaries in exchange for an entry level deal saves us about 5.75 on the cap)
This would be the first time since, let's say 1993-94 (arguably, 2002-03) that the Leafs could say they have an above average defense corps. Wouldn't that be nice for a change? And it wouldn't just be above average. Jake Muzzin as your #4, that's incredible. If you wanted, you could have Rielly, Pietrangelo or Slavin on the ice at all times.
In total, those three moves put us up 4.75 on the cap compared to right now. When I add up everything that's on the books for next year, minus the out, plus the in, plus the kessel money, I have us at 91.3, so at about $8M over the cap, something else would have to give:
- Andersen (saves us 4M if he's replaced with a bargain backup. Some teams rely on a goalie, some teams have such strong D that the goalie doesn't matter all that much. We would have to hope we're the lattter. Campbell's early returns are great too, if you haven't noticed)
- Nylander (His contract actually looks really moveable right now, doesn't it? assume we get back a younger cheaper roster player and picks, we save about $4M with this)
- Kapanen (We don't necessarily need an NHLer back in this deal, just assume we replace him with a Moore/Engvall type player and save $2M)
- Holl (He's a useful #5 to nearly any team and on a fair salary for 3 more years, as nice as it would be to keep him, we wouldn't need to. Saves us $2M)
Is this a reasonable framework for reshaping the team? Hey, I'm as attached to Matthews as anyone else, but the goal is having a better team and winning the cup, not holding onto players without a larger goal in mind.
