Team: 2017-18 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Feb. 5, 2018

Published: Feb. 5, 2018

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

This is a re-visit of a proposal I made last year for ROR with Kadri as the primary return to Buffalo, this was not received well by PalHal and a few others, I still feel strongly that the Leafs are most vulnerable at Center in their chase for the Cup, Matthews and Kadri are not enough and the thought of breaking the Matthews-Nylander combo seems like a backward step.
The Leafs have two main weaknesses: RHD and Center, I believe they can only afford to go outside for one of these pieces, it is obvious that they have options coming for Defence in Dermott and Liljegren, they have no such luxury at center.
Toronto reasons why:
ROR plays a possession style that matches the Leafs best players, ie Take-away versus give-away and corsi, he is a yearly 20 Goal, 30 assist player, he is good at face-offs even though this not considered as critical. His age matches the window that the Leafs are on, 1-5 years; ROR provides cost certainty for next 5 years as opposed to chasing Doughty, Karlsson or OEL; They can have both ROR and Kadri for the next few years and trade one if the cap becomes unmanageable ( I will be doing a further two year team review to assure ROR is affordable through 2020 ); ROR is probably 1.5 M overpaid, however, he is a glue guy just like Marleau and a formitable player in the playoffs; Leafs keep their ready prospects like Kapanen and Dermott to make a serious run for the Cup within 2-3 years; Leafs still have plenty of prospects coming in Johnsson, Grundstrom, etc
Buffalo reasons why:
ROR is their second best player and he is 5 years older than their best Eichel: In making this trade Buffalo receives a jump start on the rebuild of three of the leafs top 10 prospects and two draft picks from re-trading JVR and Bozak;
Buffalo accepts that they are not far enough along in their rebuilt to keep ROR, this would also start them on the path to trade away high priced veterans as soon can.
I am assuming people will say that an overpaid ROR is not worth two regular players and 3 quality prospects, to this I answer that Buffalo must get something in return to trade their second best player, Toronto has an abundance of prospects left and still have Hunter for future drafts, both JVR and Bozak are not the players the Leafs need to succeed and were oing to walk next season anyway, JVR only has one gift, I know scoring is an important one but I believe Nylander is a regular 30 goal scorer waiting to blossom and we still have an abundance of players that will score. Note this trade cannot wait until the trade deadline as Buffalo needs time to turn around JVR and Bozak into draft picks.

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