The Leafs have arguably gotten the best bang-for-your-buck ahead of the deadline, and they still have at least one more move coming
It has been nearly a month since the New York Islanders got things going by trading for Canucks captain Bo Horvat, setting the market ahead of the deadline. The Isles ended up parting with a 1st round pick, top prospect Aatu Raty and a good roster player in Anthony Beauvillier. Horvat and the Isles did not discuss an extension at the time, so there were never really any guarantees that one was coming. However, Horvat did indeed sign an extension a short time later.
Once the Horvat deal was out of the way, Leafs Nation had begun to prepare themselves for what it might cost to acquire a top-six forward of their own. Since the Isles had to part with Raty in the Horvat deal, there was a lot of chatter over whether the Buds would be forced to part with Matthew Knies in a deal for an impact player.
When the news dropped on February 17th that the Leafs had acquired Ryan O'Reilly and Noel Acciari from the St. Louis Blues, Leafs Nation was pleasantly surprised to find out that the team hadn't subtracted anyone from the roster, nor parted with any quality prospects. In fact, the only pieces of any real consequence was the team's 1st round pick in 2023 and their 2nd round pick in 2024. The deal was made even sweeter by the fact that O'Reilly came to the Leafs at just 25% of his cap hit, thanks to double salary retention.
The Vladimir Tarasenko trade may be the only other deal that wasn't viewed as an overpay. For reference, here's what the Rangers gave up for what they got in return. This deal also took place before the O'Reilly/Acciari trade. The Leafs very arguably got better value for what they gave up vs what they got back. The deal will look even better if O'Reilly decides to re-sign with the Leafs.
Following the Tarasenko and O'Reilly deals, the Bruins were next to act, parting with a roster piece and 4 picks for Caps defenseman Dmitry Orlov and winger Garnet Hathaway. Like O'Reilly, Orlov went to the Bruins with double salary retention, but the Bruins didn't get a Conn Smythe Trophy winner in the deal - though they did get a Stanley Cup Champion defender.
Sunday was an eventful day for trades, with the Timo Meier deal leading the way as the highest profile deal of the day. The New Jersey Devils paid a lot to get Meier, including a pair of 1st round picks (one conditional, one not conditional), a very good prospect, two roster players and some additional pieces. Yes, Meier was very arguably the top deadline piece, but the cost to acquire him was massive.
The last deal of the night was between the Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning, with the Bolts dealing a defensive prospect with a reasonably high ceiling in Cal Foote to the Preds, along with FIVE draft picks (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th rounders) in exchange for struggling depth forward Tanner Jeannot in what many are calling an absurd overpay.
As far as value received versus value sent, it's hard not to look at what the Leafs did in the O'Reilly/Acciari deal and view them as the winners of the deadline so far. It's a toss up between the Leafs and the Devils anyway. There have been some arguments that since the Bruins were already the best team and that they added 2 pretty good pieces, they should be considered the deadline winners thus far, but the cards are not all on the table yet.
Kyle Dubas has been active behind the scenes, working waivers to try to maximize his remaining cap space for something. Dubas still has $2M in available cap space to use before the deadline and, as we saw in the O'Reilly deal, Dubas can do a lot of damage with $2M in cap space. O'Reilly is currently on the Leafs' books at $1.875M. There's certainly reason to believe that the Leafs can add another impact player, as long as they're willing to pay for double salary retention.
There's another option available to the Leafs as well. They could simply deal from a surplus of forwards to create even more cap space by moving one of Pierre Engvall or Alexander Kerfoot to bring their available cap space up to between $4.25M and $5.5M, which would allow them to potentially make two more impact moves.
There are still a few days remaining until March 3rd and it's really tough to find anything wrong with how the Leafs have approached this year's deadline. If they can make another impactful addition or two, it would be really hard to form an argument that they shouldn't be viewed as the deadline winners. Of course, we can't crown them just yet - not until all of the cards are on the table.
| POLL | ||
27 FEVRIER | 174 ANSWERS The Leafs have arguably gotten the best bang-for-your-buck ahead of the deadline, and they still have at least one more move coming Did the Leafs make a mistake by not extending Kyle Dubas last summer? | ||
| Yes | 77 | 44.3 % |
| No | 97 | 55.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
