Toronto Maple Leafs - A Plan for the 2017 Trade Deadline and Beyond

It’s that time of year again. The 2017 Trade Deadline is looming and the Toronto Maple Leafs, like all NHL teams, must decide on a plan for how they want to approach this particular trade deadline. Before each of the past two trade deadlines, 2015 and 2016, I wrote an article (2015 and 2016) with my suggested plan for how the Leafs should have approached those respective trade deadlines. In a nutshell, my suggestion was to split the respective Leafs’ rosters approaching each of those trade deadlines into two lists. The first list (List “A”) would contain each player over the age of 25 and the second list (List “B”) would contain all the players under the age of 26. Each of the past two years I suggested the Leafs find new teams, with very few exceptions, for all the players on each List “A”. A deceptively simple plan and one the Leafs actually followed pretty closely.

But now that most of the List “A” players from the past two seasons have been cleared from the roster, the plan for the 2017 Trade Deadline must be refined into a more focused approach on how to continue to improve the Leafs into perennial Stanley Cup contenders – simply jettisoning players over the age of 25 is no longer a viable plan on its own.

For example, if we created a list of the players from the 2016/2017 Toronto Maple Leafs organization who were over the age of 25 it would look like this:

Table 1

As can be seen, this plan would yield a list of 15 players.

Revising that list to keep the players the Leafs might realistically want to keep until the end of the 2016/2017 season would yield this list of 7 players:.

Table 2

The Leafs might be willing to trade three names on this list (Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, and JVR) if they were to receive very attractive offers for them, but I don’t think the Leafs are actively shopping any of these three leading up to the 2017 Trade Deadline.

If we revise the list from Table 1 above to only include players who will be Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) at the end of the 2016/2017 season, we are left with List “A” below:

Table 3

This List “A” could be split into two further lists, one for players currently on the Leafs’ roster and one for players currently on the Marlies’ roster:

Table 4

Table 5

For the GM’s of the other 29 NHL teams, I don’t think there is anyone on either list that jumps out as a “must-have”, though there could be some interest again this year in Roman Polak and perhaps even Matt Hunwick.

I am not going to speculate on what the relative value of those 2 players might be and what exactly the return would be for each, there are plenty of other sites that will do that, but let's assume that it would most likely be some combination of “prospects” and/or picks numbering around 1-2.

The rest of the players have all passed through waivers at some point this season so are unlikely to receive any kind of offers, though teams might show some interest in Colin Greening and/or Brooks Laich if they are looking for veteran leadership depth for the playoffs and the Leafs were willing to retain salary and accept a very late round conditional draft pick.

So, where does that leave us? Quite frankly, with a pretty underwhelming opportunity for the Leafs to accumulate prospects and/or draft picks to help keep the prospect cupboard stocked.

At the same time, there is a looming event coming this off-season – the Expansion Draft for the Vegas Golden Knights – that could potentially throw a “monkey wrench” into the plans of the Leafs’ and the other 29 NHL teams. To understand this, we need to have a closer look at the upcoming Expansion Draft.

There are various rules associated with this Expansion Draft, the most notable being:

1. The requirement for each team to make available, or expose, two forwards and one defenseman who meet what is called the “40/70” rule. The “40/70” rule relates to the number of games a player must have played in the 2016/2017 season (40) or combined over the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 seasons (70).
2. The requirement for each team to make available a goalie who is under contract for at least the 2017/2018 season or is a Restricted Free Agent (RFA) at the end of the 2016/2017 season.
3. The requirement that exposed players must not be UFAs at the end of the 2017 season.
4. Each team can protect 7 Forwards, 3 Defensemen, and 1 Goalie (3F/3D/1G) OR a combination of 8 Forwards and/or Defensemen and 1 Goalie (8FD/1G).

Looking at their current roster, it seems to make the most sense for the Leafs to protect 7 Forwards, 3 Defensemen, and 1 Goalie. Under this scenario, the Leafs are able to protect most of the players they likely want to protect but that doesn’t mean the Leafs are out of the woods concerning the Expansion Draft.

A closer examination of the current roster shows that the only players the Leafs have who currently meet the first three requirements are players the Leafs most likely want to protect.

Table 6

Looking at an expanded list of forwards, there are four players (Byron Froese, Seth Griffith, Brooks Laich and Ben Smith) from which the Leafs might be able to sign two players to contract extensions for the 2017/2018 season so as to be able to meet the “40/70” rule for forwards.

Table 7

Looking at a list of defensemen, the Leafs do not have a problem finding someone to meet the “40/70” rule as there are more defensemen eligible for the Expansion Draft than the Leafs can protect, assuming they use the 7F/3D/1G option.

Table 8

Looking at the goalies, the Leafs have a pair who meet the requirement for goalies, Antoine Bibeau and Garret Sparks.

Table 9

If a complete list of players from the Leafs’ organization that are eligible for the upcoming Expansion Draft is built, it would look like this:

Table 10

I have highlighted the players, with a yellow question mark (“?”) in their respective ‘Protect’ box, as the most likely to be the list from which the Vegas Golden Knights select. It is highly unlikely that Vegas would select Joffrey Lupul as he has missed the 2016/2017 season with an injury. For any player listed as a UFA, Vegas could simply wait until July 1st and sign them as a Free Agent.

From the three forwards with yellow question marks (“?”) in their ‘Protect’ boxes, the Leafs will be able to still protect one of them if they so choose. Will the Leafs protect Kerby Rychel, Brendan Leipsic, or Josh Leivo? At the moment, my gut-feeling leans towards the Leafs protecting Josh Leivo.

From the three defensemen with yellow question marks (“?”) in their ‘Protect’ boxes, the Leafs will be able to still protect one of them. Will the Leafs protect Alexey Marchenko, Martin Marincin, or Connor Carrick? At the moment, my gut-feeling leans towards the Leafs protecting Connor Carrick.

From the two goalies with yellow question marks (“?”) in their ‘Protect’ boxes, the Leafs could lose one of them as they can only protect 1 Goalie and they will most definitely protect Frederik Andersen.

If my gut-feeling concerning the two players the Leafs might choose to protect is correct, the Leafs are most likely to lose one of these players in the upcoming Expansion Draft:

Table 11

Losing any one of these players is not a desired result, but as only one of the players is currently on the Leafs’ NHL roster (Martin Marincin), the Leafs find themselves in excellent position heading into the upcoming 2017 Trade Deadline and Expansion Draft since if the Leafs make no further moves between now and the Expansion Draft, the worst-case scenario for the Leafs would be losing a player from their NHL roster that they would consider their 4th or 5th best defenseman.

So, at this point where does all this leave the Leafs?

As the days to the 2017 Trade Deadline count down, the Leafs are left with some combination of these two options:

1. Trade any or all of Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, or JVR.
2. Trade any or all of Matt Hunwick, Roman Polak, Brooks Laich, Colin Greening, or any of the other UFA’s.

After the 2017 Trade Deadline has passed, the Leafs could then look to meet their “40/70” requirement for exposed players by signing contract extensions with two of these four players – Byron Froese, Seth Griffith, Brooks Laich, and Ben Smith – or face whatever penalty(s) the NHL chooses to levy for not meeting the “40/70” requirement.

After their excellent work the past two trade deadlines, it will be interesting to see how successful Leafs management will be in continuing to improve the Leafs team leading up to and through Trade Deadline day on March 1, 2017.