The Toronto Maple Leafs have made management changes with the hiring of GM John Chayka and advisor Mats Sundin and have deservedly fired head coach Craig Berube, but the organizational reboot does not appear to be limited to the corporate offices at 40 Bay or behind the bench. According to TSN and The Athletic’s Chris Johnston on his podcast with Julian McKenzie, the Leafs are open to discussing trade talks on everyone on the roster except team captain Auston Matthews.
The interesting thing about this report is that it did not include openness of talks about players with no movement clauses, such as veterans John Tavares, Morgan Rielly, and William Nylander. That is nice, but Chayka does not have many options regarding those players unless they are ready to move on after a disastrous season. Nylander has reportedly indicated that he has no wish to play anywhere, unless the Leafs are going to rebuild (which we know is not going to happen, since they do not have their first-round pick the next two seasons).
Rielly was approached by former GM Brad Treliving last summer after a subpar season under Berube and asked if he was open to playing elsewhere and he said he wanted to continue playing in Toronto. There is no evidence at this point that his stance has changed. Tavares took a hometown discount on a four-year deal and has an NMC next season.
What this report is indicative of is a fishing expedition on the part of Chayka to generate interest and offers on players that Toronto may want to move. Treliving put out winger Matthew Knies name on the market just before the trade deadline, but it is now widely thought that he was floated out there like Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou of the St. Louis Blues, and Vincent Trocheck of the New York Rangers were, to see if any team was careless enough to overpay to make a deal.
Chayka may want to move out players brought in by Treliving, such as Max Domi, Matias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua, Brandon Carlo, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Simon Benoit, and Anthony Stolarz. Knies has been tied in rumored reports to the Chicago Blackhawks, but any deal with the Hawks would likely have to include top young prospects like center Anton Frondell or defenseman Artyom Levshunov to make the Leafs even consider a deal.
The Toronto Marlies are facing elimination for the third time this postseason after a 4-0 loss to the Cleveland Monsters at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Wednesday. For the third time in the series, the Marlies allowed Cleveland to take an early lead and unlike Game 1, in which Toronto rallied from a 2-0 deficit to score five on Zach Sawchenko, the Monsters goalie faced only 16 shots to post his first shutout of the postseason.
Game 4 will take place on Friday.
