id take niemela out and replace him with hirvonen due to the fact leafs dont have any defensive prospects after him

That's not an option unfortunately.

trade doesnt get done then unfortunately leafs right side is getting old and getting rid of a 20 year old RHD for luke schenn who probably wont play wont help it

Kravtsov is a total bust. No thx

We could swap him with Knies and an additional pick

No interest in schenn; remove 4th & engvall and I’d make this trade. Heavy price to pay but Horvat at 3C would give us 4 lines that could match up with anyone, and he’d be an excellent secondary scoring threat mostly playing against 5/6 d on other team. Worth it imo

Leafs easily decline both trades, not getting Knies and Niemela for a rental

He is probably than tavares and would be the leading scorer on your team. That would make him 2C and a primary scorer

Then you arent getting Bo horvat without at least one of them +++

he has 46 goals in his last 82 regular season games and is currently at 20 goals in 27 games. If you think you are getting him for pennies on the dollar youre out to lunch

Let’s not get carried away
Having a great year, but A lot of his goals have come on PP, and our PP is set (one of the best in league past few years) so he’d be PP2 on Leafs.
His career points / goals numbers aren’t close to Matthews or JT, but they are different types of players. He’d be our 3C - no doubt about that - but with our team game and him getting better matchups (Matthews and JT lines drawing the other team’s best dmen) I’m sure he could flourish.

No worries, you're not getting a top prospect for two players that will leave. Teams would not trade for them and just wait until free agency

But just because he might be in that position because of team chemistry does not mean that hes coming at a lesser price. He would be a #1 guy on half the teams in the league

Wont be the canucks problem then, he will rather be signed or traded at that point, If you want a shot at the cup this year, horvat is available. If you want a guy for a few more years, Miller is free too

We'll just go for ROR or use our assets like Niemela for Meier

Maybe, but he wouldn’t be #1C on vast majority of playoff teams, the ones that would be interested in trading for him. Hard to argue with the numbers he’s put up this year but also hard to ignore his career averages either. He’s clearly on fire but with a seemingly unsustainable shooting %. He’s an above average 2C in my mind; as a centre where would you rank him? Not top 20, maybe not even top 30?

I would have him probably around 20-30 depending on what you value, I think that there are about 12-15 teams where he would be the #1 or would be contending for #1 but in terms of playoff teams you would be correct, there might be 4-6 playoff teams that he would be #1

I think he would be in a 3rd tier of Centres

1st would be Generational talents, Connor, Leon, Mackinnon, Matthews

2nd would be franchise players, Thompson, Crosby, Pettersson, Hughes, Eichel, Point, Barkov

3rd would be Star contributers Zibanejad, PLD, Horvat, Barzal, Hintz...

These lists are not in order when it comes to how I put them down, I just wrote who I wrote. 3rd tier is not exhaustive

Fair analysis, based on their careers to date - I would rate both Peterson in Tier 3 (near top) and Horvat the same (but bottom). Peterson in top 20 centers (15-20) and Horvat between 25-30. They’re hot to start the year and if they can keep this pace all year then they could move up, I know you said list was not exhaustive but you missed a lot of top (& better) centers - Aho, Bergeron, Stamkos, Malkin

See I think I would have Horvat over all of them right now. Horvat is quicker than 3/4 he is stronger than 3/4 is better in the circle than 3/4 and is younger than 3/4 but they are very good candidates. I think that Pettey would be in contention of that 3rd tier if he had a slower start this year because of his start last year but he has been on an absolute tear as of recent and is probably going to get selke votes and probably hart votes for that (IDK if I said that in our convo or another one already)

Also consider that Horvat has had terrible linemates (offensively) for most of his career. The ghost of Eriksson was stapled to his line for years. His most consistent linemate throughout recent years has been Pearson.

Horvat is the type to score 20g by himself, but he can definitely play with better players. He'd be the perfect center for a bunch of skilled wingers like Marner, Panarin, Huberdeau, Kane, etc. and could be a regular 40g guy playing with them in his prime. This is while taking the most faceoffs in the league and winning them too (he's had games this year where he's like 12-1 through two periods, imagine how much those wingers would like playing with that).