the team has been good of late. Defence hasn't been amazing, but they've held down the fort. Keep in mind they'll be adding two top pairing defensemen in Rielly and Muzzin later down the stretch, and if the team plays with the heart and grit that it has of late, the defence will be alright. Trading Marner for a defenceman takes away this team's #1 strength when realistically all they need is a solid defensive top4 RHD, not necessarily two of the best RHD in the game, as nice as it'd be. If you're gonna trade Marner, a big name forward should be brought in to play with AM/JT

Why would Columbus trade their only 2 healthy NHL calibre players?

Honestly, Marner has been dreadful this season. Easily replaceable. If the Leafs trade him now they won’t get much value back.

Lol what have you been watching

Lmao Columbus that so fast. We have 1 win this season with Jones out of the line up this season. He’s too important for Columbus to trade right now. Also Texier has 2nd line center potential and a team who needs a center that’s way more important then picking up a wing.

This trade is awful for Columbus.

Can't get a big name forward and substantially upgrade the D core at the same time. Not enough cap space.

Hardly dreadful. Pro rated his offensive numbers are very similar to last season. Last season, Marner an the Leafs were effective when he played right point on the PP. With the addition of the very average Barrie, Marner has lost that position of the PP. I'd say get him back to playing the point.

I actually agree with him regarding Marner since the TSN noted how great Marner has been player a few weeks ago.

At the beginning of the season Marner was garbage after fighting to become the highest paid right winger in the NHL at a ridiculous $16,000,000 salary and $10,893,000 cap hit. He then started to play great under Keefe and then in January TSN ran a couple of articles on how great Marner is and he has been fumbling the puck, falling down, skating slow, missing passes, making HORRIBLE plays, etc.

I don't know how his play the last 6 weeks can be defended at any salary let alone one of the highest RW salaries in the world.

I agree with @Britishbulldog entirely. Other than maybe a 15 game stretch from the end of December to mid January where he was lights out, Marner has significantly underperformed this season. Every time he’s on the ice, he’s whiffing on shots & passes, falling down, turning it over, squandering scoring chances & trying to force plays that aren’t there. It’s a joke. Marner’s play this season reminds me of Pens Forward Conor Sheary. He’s not even been close to the player he was last season. Given his cap hit & current play, he doesn’t have much value on the trade market.

FOR G-D'S SAKE ****ING STOP IT ALREADY

Jones WILL NOT BE TRADED. You cannot have him.

nor will Marner, it's just a theoretical

but my point is that a big name defenceman isn't necessary. They have a good #1 in rielly, and a solid #2 in Muzzin. Barrie is a pretty good #3 option, and offensive defenceman, and they realistically just need another defensive top 4, which doesn't mean moving Nylander/marner, but does mean that the defence gets significantly better. With that addition plus the development of sandin/dermott/liljegren, the defence will be looking good. The defence itself obviously hasn't been particularly stunning, but the team's main problem has been TEAM defence, not the defence core. The leafs forwards have really dug in deep over the past few games and have been backchecking hard and playing well in their zone, and look at the difference that it makes. When this team works well together, even with this extremely banged up blue line, they can still win games.

They don't have the cap space for Barrie next season unless they make a trade. Their #3 and 4 would be Dermott and Holl who are 4/5 defenceman. That leaves us with 3 million to sign a #2/3 RHD.

they don't necessarily need barrie. Sign a guy like tanev or someone comparable, and trade Johnsson or kapanen or kerfoot plus picks/prospects for another top4 RHD (Johnsson might not bring back a good enough dman, but can be moved for some more cap space), giving your team a solid top 4 and a very strong bottom pairing with two of Dermott/holl/sandin

Tanev isn't gonna sign for 3 million AAV. Gonna have to trade 2 of Kerfoot, Johnsson, Mikheyev, Kapanen or one of the big 4 if you want 2 top 4 RHD.

as I said, trade one of kerfoot and kapanen, as well as johnsson