Team: 2023-24 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 21, 2023

Published: Jun. 21, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Thoughts on this trade:
Canes are desperately looking for scoring help and with Patches likely out for most of the season again, they need to add some. Talks have for whatever reason not been great between Pesce and the Canes. The thought is the deal is focused around these two. Nylander for Pesce is a close value but Nylander holds a higher value. Canes would also like some extra cap room, so they send Turbo over to help the cost. He had a down year and has one year remaining on his deal. In order to make the deal a better balance, Leafs send over Timmins, who has a cheap deal for two years, to replace the RHD in Pesce. Picks are swamped to make things fair.

Leafs are desperately looking for a change for playoffs. I can already hear the Leaf fans, why are we trading our best playoff performer?! Simple, he can't be our best playoff performer. No disrespect to Nylander, who I love, He should be the 3rd or even 4th best player on the team. In the playoffs, Matthews and Marner have one more chance to prove they can win when it matters. And not having Nylander to rely on shows the Leafs what changes they might need to do long term. If they can't perform, maybe it is time to move on from another of the core 4. This deal not only makes the Leafs significantly better on defence, but you don't lose a major chuck on offence. Turbo should rebound to a 50-60 point player and Knies will play the whole time meaning the Leafs don't lose a lot. To sum up, you get much better on D, a little worse on O, and you put all the pressure on Matthews and Marner to perform which you need from 11 million dollar players.