That Nashville trade is absolutely disgusting for the Leafs.

They make up for it by buying out Turris, and trading for a defenceman in Brett Pesce.

Why would Carolina ever trade Pesce straight up for a first? Aren't they entering win mode not rebuild mode?

Thats awful foe Toronto

They have a lot of defensemen on their roster, so they’ll be fine. Plus if they wanted to they could use those picks to trade for more assets, or go higher up in the draft.

As I start to calm a bit, maybe you give this group one more shot (as in the core 4, obviously some things have to be shaken up). They did run into some lights out goaltending. Matthews and Tavares hit more posts than I can count. They lost their best defensive defenceman and the D actually didn't look as awful as usual.

Maybe you give them one more shot. Marner has produced at a very similar rate to Kane in his early years, can PK, etc, and maybe you'll regret giving up a guy like that. Maybe they just need some more veteran presence to instil some championship pedigree into these guys. Maybe the young guys step up and make the defence look a lot better, and maybe the forwards have learned to forecheck and play harder and play team defence, because I thought they did better in that series.

I think they add 3 things this year to try again before thinking about moving the core.
1) A defensive 3rd line center that you'd be comfortable with playing up the lineup
2) Someone solid to play with Rielly
3) Change up the goaltending, not because Freddie was bad in that series - he was very good - but he's 30 years old, UFA in one year, will cost too much to be worth it, and the team could use a fresh new look in net.

People that have to go:
1) Holl. Looks like garbage without Muzzin
2) Kerfoot. Not because he's bad but because you need room for a defensive 3C
3) Barrie. Can't afford, looked like garbage
4) Ceci. Can't afford, looked like garbage, but only because they made him play 1st pair minutes
5) Clifford. I think he'll cost at least 1.25M, and Leafs can't afford to upgrade the 3rd round pick to a 2nd round pick to LA because of the condition if they resign him. You need cheap ELC talent to sustain this team

As for the trade itself, Turris is a pure cap dump, and Marner is worth more than that

This is probably the best post I've seen on here since the loss. Wish it was shorter so I could copy and paste it into a tweet. Hit the nail on the head here. Every word. Bang on.

Apparently the Leafs have been linked to Caps defenseman Radko Gudas per Elliotte Friedman

Maybe he's the someone to play with Rielly. Or they somehow fit him on the third pair with Sandin

Gudas has been a cleaner shutdown player this year unlike most years

This,

Carolina would not trade Pesce for a pick,

at least the Marner / Nylander trades are improving our RW

This trade just makes no sense

Agreed. It's just as bad for Nashville too. Both teams decline.

Why would they decline this trade? The Predators need a top line winger to put them over the top and Marner is not a top line winger?

Yeah, but they're giving up a top line winger on an insanely good contract. There should be a couple of future top line wingers available to them at 11th overall too. Sure they get rid of Turris and his contract, but while he makes too much, Turris can still contribute. He's not quite in that Okposo/Ladd/Jack Johnson tier of terrible deals. Marner's overpaid by a couple million too, so that kind of negates the savings. It's a one step forward, two steps back type of deal for the Preds.

Then that's $2M of dead cap for 8 years. That's absolutely pointless. Plus is a massive downgrade from Marner to Arvidsson.

Something needs to be done in the six. A lot of people aren’t going to like it but it’s for the better. They’ll have room to sign Pietrangelo if they wish.

Still not worth $2M of dead cap space for 8 years..

Give it a chance will ya

A team that is as close to the cap as Toronto is should not be adding $2M of dead cap when that can be used on players to help