Strange proposal sees Nick Robertson traded for former 2nd overall pick

With CapFriendly finally going dark after the Washington Capitals purchased them a few short weeks ago, other websites, such as PuckPedia, have since added armchair GM functions to allow fans to exercise their creativity and tinker with rosters and share the results of their experiments with other fans.

With the Robertson and Laine trade requests becoming official this summer, one fan believes the Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs could make excellent trade partners. In the image below, you can see this fan's unique concoction, packaging Robertson with Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf and a 1st round pick in 2026 for 2 years of Patrik Laine at 50% of his $8.7M salary and a 2nd round pick.

The Leafs do save some money on this deal, yes, but I fail to see how the team is getting tangibly better with the addition of Laine and the subtraction of Robertson, Jarnkrok and Kampf.

While none of these pieces seem overly important on the surface, Jarnkrok is only 1 year removed from a 20-goal season, Robertson enjoyed a pretty productive 2023-24 season in limited ice time and David Kampf is one of the Leafs' primary penalty killers.

Laine played in just 18 games for the Blue Jackets last season, producing only 9 points. This is a far cry from his previous season, in which he produced 22 goals and 52 points across 55 games in 2022-23.

Obviously, this isn't a trade that we expect to happen, nor has Laine been linked to the Maple Leafs in any way, but if such a trade were to materialize, the Leafs would be getting the raw end of the deal in this one.

Source: PuckPedia
Patrik Laine stats, bio and salary info