I would try to retrain 1000000 from Manson but other then that great

Ducks don’t have the space...

That would secure the ducks inability to ice a team next season lol.

The teams that will have both a need and space for Nylander, will be teams that are losing a top scoring winger

I'd look to Columbus because Panarin is going UFA at age 27, because he signed a lower $6 million deal. Basically Panarin is Nylander in 6 years

Otherwise you're just selling for picks/prospects that can't help the D for years, and what the Leafs need is a D-core that can catch up and be ready to play in the NHL yesterday. The Leafs were built backwards, and then they procrastinated on the hardest pieces.

If you look a few years out for D that may be hitting UFA and whose teams are rebuilding:
Hjalmarsson, ARI, at age 32 ufa 2019
Hamilton, CAR, at age 28 ufa 2021
Gudbranson, VAN, at age 29 ufa 2021

Basically there's no chance at stealing a D in UFA. Procrastination only hurts in this case, there is no getting lucky.

If you're not meeting the other team's existing need, you'll really need to blow their socks off with Nylander+

I can't see the Ducks doing the deal. Nylander costs the same as Manson and Kase combined. The Ducks only get one NHLer in the trade (Carrick doesn't count) and the Leafs get two.

Even if you count carrick and they use him on the bottom pair, they still lose 2m in space for a very tight upcoming season

Minnesota would make a good trade partner as well.

I'll agree with you the Leafs might have to trade a highly paid forward for highly paid defenseman at some team, if a Dman is greater need.
But it's getting to be a silly argument that the Leafs have a lot bad Dmen. Minnesota and their highly paid Dmen allowed one less goal than the Leafs last year. Columbus with Werenski and Bob ing goal, four less goals. I think Leafs and Cup winning Washington were two goals apart. Just about all teams wish they could improve their bottom end Dmen. It isn't unique to the Leafs. Even the Leafs main rivals in the Atlantic Boston and Tampa don't look NHL solid at the bottom end.
Leafs selected four dmen with their top picks in the last two drafts....two firsts and two seconds plus European UFAs Zaitsev, Borgman, Rosen, Ozhignokov. Well see if those guys are NHLers but geez it sure looks the Leafs are doing the right things to built a good defence long term

Its prob not even worth trading Nylander to begin with unless its for a real elite level D. Otherwise trading him would be a big mistake leaving a big hole on RW and giving Matthews no elite level RW to play with. Both Tavares and Matthews need an elite winger to play with if they want to have the big double barrel attack and that is going to be Nylander and Marner on lines 1 and 2. Also, their D core is pretty good already and is just going to get better with all the great D prospects they drafted.