What possible incentive would lead the Leafs to make a trade where they send the 2 best assets and get an average defender and two nothing prospects?

Colby Cave gives them depth and some push in the bottom 6. Larsson is more of what they need and has an extra year compared to Barrie. JP is their player next year. Larsson is much better than Barrie and Kap isn't playing that well

No. This is an awful trade and none of what you said is correct.

Leafs perspective: Do not need bottom 6 depth, Larrson isn't worth a top pairing Dman and what would be a top 6 RW in Edmonton, pool party is worthless. None of this makes any sense and the value is way out of line

Can Cave even make the bottom 6 in Edmonton? Cause he has zero chance of doing that in TO. Larsson has been the same thing his entire career. Nothing. And JP is a bust. All for Kapanen, who would instantly become Edmonton's top RW and Barrie who becomes your best offensive defenceman. This is just lunacy.

The value is out of line, but Barrie is NOT a top-pairing defenseman. He plays second pairing with Muzzin and he can't even handle that: he absolutely SINKS Muzzin's goal differential. Muzzin is 11-18 with Barrie and 18-11 without him.

Yeah lets just ignore the past 5 seasons of Barrie being top 10 in defenceman points. That definitely never happened and he had a brutal start to the season. Also he is now paired with Rielly on the top pair but again none of that matters because it hurts your insane arguement.

"Points" doesn't determine whether someone is on the top-pairing or not, quality of comp does. He never played 1st pair in Colorado and he's failing at it in Toronto: 1-4 goals so far despite playing with one of the top defensemen in the game.

Lol pretty confident NHL GMs encompass a players entire career when placing Value

Super, lets use and entirely minuscule sample size now. I guess we should ignore everything that has happened except really recent things Adam Larsson and Oscar Klefbom are the worst defenceman in the NHL, just look at their last game minus 4 against Ottawa. That mus mean they both are borderline AHL players because nothing really matters and all we are doing is cherry picking whatever stat we can find to bend the narrative.

No way man, these other guys are right, all that matters is right now, everything in the past doesn't matter and all that matters is what happened in the last couple of games. Its why Draisaitl is obviously the worst defensive forward in the NHL, minus 2 in his last game against Ottawa. Its crap like this that makes me not want to talk about hockey.

"He never played 1st pair in Colorado" - how is that a small sample size? It's his ENTIRE CAREER!

And now you're deflecting by bringing other players into the conversation.

He did play top line minutes a lot. In fact, he played a lot of time against top competition last year in the playoffs. He's an upper echelon offensive defenceman. He isn't a middle pair nobody like you like to claim. But this is the common garbage from non leaf fans on this site. I get you think "ALL LEAF FANS" overvalue their players, many do. Just as man Oiler fans completely overvalue their own players. Its just a common bias. However, combatting that bias by going to the extreme in the other direction doesn't make one smart, it makes them just as stupid as the person who overvalued to begin with.

Barrie is definitely a puck moving offensive guy, but not overly great in his own end. He's something like 5th in defenceman points over the past 6 seasons, that is some highly elite company. So to call him a 2nd pair scrub, which is exactly what you guys are insinuating here, is an utter joke.

There nothing wrong with him playing 2nd pair, nothing at all. I didn't call him a scrub - that was you - and if you look back you'll see I said the same things about him when he was is Colorado, so it has nothing to do with the fact he's a Leaf. You're being overly defensive, try to chill a bit. Oh, and while you're at is, find me a year that he played 1st pairing comp. I'll wait.

Johnson and Barrie had almost identical time on ice numbers when over the past several years. You're a clown.

Spending 5 minutes per game on the PP + 15 minutes 2nd pair 5v5 is does not make him a 1st pairing defender. Look at quality of competition to see which defensemen are drawing the toughest assignments. Most common partner might also give you a clue. I'll help:

2014-15: 3rd pair (most common partner: Nate Guenin)
2015-16: 2nd pair (Nick Holden)
2016-17: 2nd pair (Fedor Tyutin)
2017-18: 2nd / 3rd (Nikita Zadorov / Patrik Nemeth)
2018-19: 2nd pair (Ian Cole)
2019-20: 2nd* pair (Jake Muzzin)

* this pairing has been very sheltered from elite competition, they've played about half as much against elites as Rielly-Ceci have. Barrie's usage is very similar to Holl's, actually.

By the way, I like your username change!

Here's some reality, the package you put together would be hard pressed to pry Kapenen out of the Leafs let alone bring Barrie along with him, That package is absolutely a slight over payment for Kapenen but again the Leafs are probably not looking to move a 22 yet old RW with top 6 potential all over him unless it's an overpayment