Toronto Maple Leafs - a Plan for the 2016 Trade Deadline

Around this time last year, I wrote an article about what I thought the plan should be for the Leafs heading into the 2015 Trade Deadline. Take a moment to reread that article to refresh your memory or I can summarize it for you. My suggested plan, with only a few exceptions, was to find new teams for everyone on the February 2015 Leafs’ roster over the age of 25.

Applying my age 25 cut-off plan to the Leaf roster back in February 2015 yielded this list:

Table 1

As can be seen, that plan yielded an original list of 16 players. 

Revising that list to keep only the players who played the “right way” (Leo Komarov, Roman Polak, and James Reimer), yielded a list of 13 players:

Table 2

That revised list was further split into two lists – List “A” and “B”:

Table 3

Table 4

As can be seen, List “A” was the pending Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) and List “B” was the players with term still left on their contracts.

By the 2015 Trade Deadline, Leafs management had done a great job and had been able to trade 4 of the 6 players on List “A”.

I’m sure the trade market was rigorously explored for the players on List “B” and before the beginning of the 2015/16 season, Leafs management had done a fantastic job and traded 2 of the 3 players who still had extended term left on List “B” – David Clarkson and Phil Kessel. Having to retain salary on the Phil Kessel deal was unfortunate but seemingly necessary to be able to find him a new team.

Unfortunately, there was still a contract left on List “B” which could impact the Leafs when they enter their competitive window – Dion Phaneuf. An argument can be made that he could provide the kind of veteran presence needed by a young defense corps but paying your 5th or 6th D-man $7 million AAV isn’t ideal. Finding a trading partner for Dion without retaining any salary would give the Leafs a lot of future flexibility under the salary cap, something they will need as their youngsters start coming off their ELCs.

Now, applying my same age 25 cut-off plan to the 2015/16 Leafs roster yields these lists:

Table 5

Once again, there are some serviceable players on the above list of 18. Keeping a few of them around could prove useful. They could provide a good example of how to play the "right way", fill out roster spaces, and most importantly, provide ample time for all the youngsters coming in via the draft and/or trades to continue developing in the minors - whether the OHL, AHL, or overseas.

Therefore, from the original list of 18, Leo Komarov and James Van Riemsdyk are definitely keepers. Depending on whether Dion Phaneuf is traded and how much term he wants will determine whether Matt Hunwick and James Reimer respectively are Leafs to start the 2016/17 season.

Looking at the revised list of 18 above, it’s obvious that contract status should once again split the list into two new lists – List “A” and List “B”:

Table 6

Table 7

As can be seen, List “A” are the pending Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) and List “B” are the players with term still left on their contracts.

As the players on List “A” are becoming UFAs at the end of this season, it has a time constraint, therefore new teams should be found before the February 29 2016 trade deadline for the following players:

1. Mark Arcobello

2. Brad Boyes

3. Rich Clune

4. Michael Grabner

5  Shawn Matthias

6. P.A. Parenteau

7. Roman Polak

8. James Reimer?

9. Nick Spaling

I am not going to speculate on what the relative value of the above 9 players is and what exactly the return would be for each, there are plenty of other sites doing that, but let's assume that it would most likely be some combination of prospects and/or picks numbering around 4-5.

List “B” has its own constraints, but time is not one of them. Therefore, more time could be taken and/or options explored before new teams should be found for these players:

1. Jonathan Bernier

2. Tyler Bozak

3. Matt Hunwick?

4. Joffrey Lupul

5. Dion Phaneuf

6. Stephane Robidas

7. Daniel Winnick

Again, I am not going to speculate on what the relative value of the above 7 players is and what exactly the return should be for each, but let's assume that it most likely could be some combination of players and/or prospects and/or picks numbering around 3-4.

There it is – a simple plan having a simple first goal - find new homes for the UFA players on List “A”.

After their excellent job last year, it will be interesting to see how successful Leafs management is in implementing my plan leading up to and through Trade Deadline day on February 29th.