The Toronto Maple Leafs have several needs going into the summer, if they hope to return to the postseason after a dramatic downturn last season. GM John Chayka has Auston Matthews as a top line center, but the club is likely to be looking to upgrade up the middle after trading veterans Nicolas Roy and Scott Laughton at the trade deadline.
One unanswered question for Chayka is whether he can get one more quality season from former captain John Tavares at center. The 35-year-old scored 31 goals last season, partially a product of playing top-line minutes with Matthews missing the last month of the season, and is an excellent face-off man and playmaker, but his declining speed would make a shift to the wing a plausible option. The problem is, where do you get a #2 center that does not cost you an arm and a leg?
Free agency is not an answer, because the pool of players this July is extremely shallow, and got even shallower on Tuesday with the signing of pending free agent center Michael McCarron to a six-year, $20 million contract. McCarron is a 6’6” monster and a physical presence up the middle, but is purely a bottom-six (likely fourth line) center for the Minnesota Wild, but yet, he still got $3.33 million per season AAV and no-move protection after scoring eight goals last season.
What this tells you, for all those Leafs fans who were hoping that Toronto would bring back Scott Laughton, that it will likely cost a club in the neighborhood of $5 million a year to get him signed. Chayka may be looking at trade options (no, not Dylan Larkin) to get younger and faster up the middle. One name that continues to get mentioned in Utah’s Barrett Hayton. The 26-year-old Peterborough, ON native scored 20 goals for the first time in 2024-25, but dropped to 25 points (10 goals, 15 assists) in 67 games last season.
Hayton was Arizona’s fifth overall pick in 2018 under Chayka, and is a restricted free agent with arbitration rights and one year away from unrestricted free agency. Slotted behind the emerging Logan Cooley and the recently re-signed Nick Schmaltz, and with Caleb Desnoyers on the way, it is possible that Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong would trade Hayton before having to qualify him.
Further down the lineup is where the Leafs could look at internal candidates like Jacob Quillan, Luke Haymes, and/or Benoit-Olivier Groulx to fill spots in the bottom-six, but their ability to do that is in question, partially because former head coach Craig Berube refused to play Quillan more than 10 minutes on most nights, and only called up Haymes late in the season. Groulx got an extensive look after Matthews was injured and acquitted himself well, so he may be capable of being a full-time NHL forward next season.
Home › Forums › Center Costs Are Going Up, Up, Up
Tagged: nhl, Toronto Maple Leafs