Wild trade proposal emerges between the Maple Leafs and the Bruins

Today we've got a wild one, courtesy of @CapWages on X, that links the Maple Leafs and their arch rivals, the big, bad Bruins, in a blockbuster 1-for-1 deal involving Mitch Marner.

Yes, you saw that, right? CapWages has proposed the idea of swapping Leafs star winger Mitch Marner for top pairing defenseman Charlie McAvoy in Boston.

McAvoy was a player the Leafs liked during the 2016 NHL draft. Of course, they were never ever going to pass on drafting Auston Matthews with the top pick, but there was a time when getting him may have been conceivable, before he emerged as a legitimate Norris Trophy-caliber defenseman.

It's no secret that the Leafs need help on the blueline and a player like McAvoy would be incredible, but unfortunately this swap would never happen. There is too much hate between Boston and Toronto to consider a blockbuster deal like this one.

Toronto needs scoring more than anything once the playoffs start and to move one of our top forwards to a division rival would clearly come back to haunt them. We've seen this happen many times before, a former Leaf burning the Leafs in the playoffs.

Of course, we shouldn't ignore the fact that Boston doesn't have a need to do this either. McAvoy is a premier, minute-munching, all-situations, right-shot defender. To be fair to Boston, Marner probably isn't enough of a return for them to even pick up the phone, given McAvoy's status as a top-5 defenseman in the league.

There are reasons to trade Marner, the lack of playoff success and huge cap hit being a couple of them. If he is ever to be moved, however, I'm fairly confident that it won't be for McAvoy.

If you'd like to try your hand as a general manager, check out the tool below and see what sort of insanity you can come up with.

Source: CapWages
CapWages GM Tool