noah hanifin and a 2nd round pick for William nylander

You should win a cup/ make it past the first round to even start to consider yourself a dynasty?

Rielly is our 1D and rest would be filled with young skilled talented 2way guys coming from within like Liljegren, Räsänen, Sandin, Durzi, etc... and like Dermott already did.. you need reliable defence core and all 6 guys to be efficient and smart on and off the puck.

Rielly barely fits the description of a #1 defenseman. most good teams who are considered to have good defensive lines have three guys that they can call top defenseman. Toronto has 1. best case scenario you find 2 guys that would take over the first line RD and 2nd line LD making dermott Zaitsev and Borgman your depth defenders.

look at other teams considered to have good defense. they all have the core three
Blues: pietrangelo, parayko, Boumeester
Preds: Subban, Josi Ekholm
Tampa Hedman, Mcdounagh, Stralman
Calgary: Giordano, Brodie, Hamonic
Jets Byfuglien, Trouba, Myers

biggest problem I see from Toronto fans and management is a complete unwillingness to part with a top forward to get a top defenseman. there is no other way its going to happen

Yeah win a playoff series before you start talking about a dynasty

Yes, after Rielly and Zaitsev the prospective defense is inexperienced, but think about this: (1) by next fall, at least two of Dermott/Borgman/Ozhiganov/Liljegren/Holl will have a full year's experience from 2018-2019, and (2) there's always the free-agent market for a middle-pair defender at an acceptable cost (look at Petrovic or Bortuzzo or the like). By the way, handle Horton's LTIR better and you have enough cap space to fill out the roster.

Add Gaudreau to make it a fair trade and you have a deal.

you are ridiculous

Because we know how valuable and great they are. Thats why we dont want tak trade them. If I'd get opportunity to trade Nylander for guy like Ekblad, Pietrangelo mostly Ekblad because he is the same age and they both are stellar players.. leafs dont need to trade Nylander for Parayko and Blues dont trade Parayko, so counts for Florida and I would want nothing less in return then similar aged about to breakout future norris candidate Defender. You dont see it but Nylander is on the same level as Kucherov was after elc..

That’s a great list of players who have never won a cup!!! And yes I know Big buf won with the hawks. I think that says something right there. People who don’t play hockey think that defence is a two man job but it’s a 6 man job. Everyone loves to hate on the leafs, even more so now that we have a great team. i’ll Just let it roll off my back and enjoy some great hockey.

I may be old, but even my failing memory can go all the way back to June of this year to recall that (1) none of those "great" defensive teams made the Stanley Cup finals, and (2) two of them didn't even make the playoffs at all. And as I also recall, Washington's defense was so "great" that Brooks Orpik couldn't land a new gig ANYWHERE and no one thought that the Golden Knights' defense was anything but some cast-off journeymen.

I was pointing out the absolute idiocy of Hanafin and a second for Nylander.

I don't disagree with you that Nylander is very good but in no world is a team going to give you a Norris candidate defenseman to aquire your fourth best player. a deal will never happen with the leafs if you continue to over value nylander at the expense of your defensive core. im not a leafs fan but don't get me wrong I would love to see a Canadian team win the cup and I hope the leafs can do it without a strong defensive core. however I don't see predict theat they have the ability to win the cup unless they sacrifice some offence to improve their defense

If Marner was able to pry out Seth Jones from Columbus. A very hard trade to make

never did I say that defense is a two man job and never did I say that your depth defense doesn't have to atleast be decent. it is a very small fraction of players that have won the Stanley cup so that argument has no grounds. im not hating on the leafs in the slightest im just saying they would be much more likely to win a cup if they had a solid defensive line to go along with there incredible offensive talent.

every single player on Vegas other than neal and Perron were playing leaps and bouds above their ability last year due to the extreme chemistry and underdog attitude they had. Washington had Carlson niskanen and orlov as there core.

never did I say that defense is all you need to win a Stanley cup hoever you cant win a cup with zero defensive talent either.
the three most winningest teams in the last decade all had a core 3 defensive guys when they won the cup.

Pittsburgh 2017: letang, Schultz, dumolin/hainsey
Pitt 2016: Schultz letang dumolin/ clendening
Chicago 2015: hjalmarsson, keith seabrook
LA 2014: Doughty Green Muzzin Reghere
Chicago 2013: hjalmarsson, keith seabrook

shall I go on? the point is teams that win Stanley cups have to be well rounded. currently the leafs are not well rounded

Uh Hanifin already got traded.

but don't listen to me. @OldNYIfan @Jamiepo @SammyT_51

we will see if the leafs can accomplish anything with arguably the best offensive core in the league and a bottom 5 defense and top 10 goalie

what's your point that doesn't mean he cant get traded again

I think our defence is solid. 13th in goals against last year and will be better this season. healthy Zaitsev, Dermott will have more experience. Players like Ozhiganov and liljgren will compete for spots. Our defence is built to be puck movers and we do a great job of that.

To say that the list of great defencemen you put up would make us more likely to win a cup when it hasn’t done that for their respective teams has no grounds is a bit narrow sighted.

Tampa, Nashville, Winnepeg and yes even your flames have some pretty high powered offensive lines. (Blues had a spudering offence so we will leave them out). Why did these great high priced defencemen not push any of these teams to even the finals? Couldn’t even secure Calgary a playoff spot.

I like the team we are building and I am happy with the way we are going about it. When the right offence was up for grabs we drafted it. When the right Dmen were there we drafted them. Liljegren was a complete steal at 17th. Smart development and drafting will work far better than trying to buy someone else’s stars.

The one problem with this team is the fans

Essentially, you're advancing three arguments here: (1) Las Vegas played "leaps and bounds above their ability" last year. According to that thinking, you expect them to revert to the mean this year. Well, we'll see, and then I'll owe you a beer if they don't win their division (MY division) this year. (2) You need a core of 3 outstanding defensemen to win the Cup. This may be true, or the last 5 years may be coincidental. (Good job reminding us of those teams.) The best team in my lifetime (NYI 1979-1984) had two world-class defensemen (Potvin and Morrow), 2 Jake Gardiner types and 2 heavy hitters, but maybe hockey is different now. (3) Teams that win Stanley Cups have to be well-rounded, but Toronto isn't. This has an element of truth, but the jury is still out because we haven't played this season. (The team posted is next year's, remember.) Last year's Leafs defense was better than all of the non-playoff teams' defenses and better than a few playoff teams' defenses. They may improve enough this year to merit the term "acceptably stout." With this offense, that would satisfy me and, I suspect, many Toronto fans.

See my other above comment and look at the teams that have won the cup as they all have a top 3 defensive core. Even farther back then just the ones I posted

I’m not even remotely faulting the way the leafs have rebuild or the way they picked prospects. I’m just pointing out they could round out their team by trading one of their top forwards for a strong defenseman. When you have too much of one aspect of the team you use that aspect to improve the other aspects of your team. Has nothing to do with as you so bluntly put it “buying other teams stars”

Or they could round out their team by developing D men and keeping our stars... should be a lightbulb going on right now.... if I’m going to “round” things out let’s make a bigger circle not a smaller one.

And who’s to say we don’t win a cup in the mean time could even be this year.

What is this fantasy about having a # 1 D. Do you think it leads to success? Just look at the top Dmen in the league now. Hedman, eight years, missed playoffs three times, Is that success a # 1 D brings. Karlsson mssed the playoffs three times in seven years, three playoff round wins. Burns, highest paid Dman...one Cup final. Even Doughty since they won their last Cup, no playoff round wins.

PS. And I see these ridiculous Karlsson trades where folks want to blow their brains acquiring a one year rental. Look at some history.