The Toronto Maple Leafs return to action on Wednesday in Tampa Bay, and coming out of the Olympic break, two trades were made on Tuesday; one of the minor league variety involving Julien Gauthier going to the Blues for Matt Luff, and the other one of some significance involving former Leafs GM Kyle Dubas acquiring defenseman Samuel Girard and a 2028 second round pick from Colorado for rental defenseman Brett Kulak.
The deal for Kulak is, in a sense, selling cap space on the part of Dubas, as Kulak is in the final year of his deal and makes $2.75 million, while Girard makes $5 million and is under contract for another year. Leafs GM Brad Treliving has likely explored the trade market in the two weeks since the roster freeze and is prepared to make moves over the next 10 days before the trade deadline, but the question is, to what extent will he make deals?
The narrative that continues to be floated out there is that Toronto is seeing what happens coming out of the break, and if they draw closer to the last two Eastern Conference playoff spots, they may just stay the course and hope that they can sneak into the postseason. In all honesty, that is the type of thinking that occurred nearly 20 years ago with John Ferguson Jr. as GM, when the Leafs barely missed the playoffs when instead they should have sold off some of their assets to reset their roster.
Toronto did not do that, and that was one of many factors that led to their long playoff drought. The Leafs cannot do a teardown/rebuild because in spite of having their 2026 first-round pick traded to Boston top-five protected and 2027 top pick dealt to Philadelphia top-10 protected, they will be too good to bottom out with Auston Matthews and William Nylander on the roster (just like Mats Sundin made them in 2006 and 2007).
Unless something breaks today or before the game against the Lightning on Wednesday night, Treliving appears to be waiting to see if his rested club can climb back into the playoff race, and only if they don’t, will they make moves consistent with a reset or retool. Players like Bobby McMann and Scott Laughton do not fit into this category. As pending unrestricted free agents, Treliving risks losing these players for nothing if they are not re-signed or traded before March 6.
There have been indicators of low-level discussions between both players’ representatives and the Leafs, but nothing that would be considered on the front burner. Both have said publicly that they would like to stay in Toronto, which many rentals say, but the true test of that desire is to take less to stay. If there is a significant gap between what the Leafs are willing to pay and what the player wants, then Treliving should not wait and trade both of them for as much in return as possible.
