Dude the leafs currently have the best offense in the league. They can afford to give up Nylander (not saying they need to or anything, just that they can). Robertson and Mikheyev should be adequate top 6ers.

The leafs are better than the Bruins now.

they have the best offence in the league because they have willy driving possession numbers through the roof, quarterbacking the powerplay etc.

trading him could create a serious dent in their offence, disproportionate to how much their D would improve imo

Elite excuse maker.

Easily, yes.

Thornton has made his big money. He's trying to win a Cup. I don't see it happening in Toronto but stranger things have happened.

Yes, I would too (I under why people wouldn't though).

Thought it would make a nice discussion. Doesnt mean I agree with what everything he says

Oh really? What do you base that on? If you have a hunch, that’s fine i guess. I don’t really see anything that would indicate it though. The leafs dodged a bullet with the new divisions.

ya making 5 million to 700k big step down

The Leafs have been re-building since 1967. Are we done or do we need to go for another decade, while saying the same cliche response?

Oh of course. But having a better balanced team could benefit them.

Burke knows more than anyone on this site. His opinion is more valuable than yours.

I agree here. Liljegren and Sandin have a lot of potential, too much to let go to waste

Ya, just a hunch. Also just to make you mad lol. The new divisions should really help the leafs and hurt the bruins.

You uh, you banking on Roberson making the difference?

Best of luck.

idk man, call me crazy but I'm gonna hang onto the guy who had more goals than scheifele, laine, hoffman, point, m. tkachuk, kopitar, and nuge.

he had 2 nhl seasons of 61 points, was an elite puck moving winger, great passer, great shot etc. had a dumpster fire contract holdout year, then came back and scored 31 in a shortened season. If I am trading him, it's until I see whether he repeats the feat or it was a fluke

Plus with Robertson and Amirov (2-3 years) coming up soon, they'll patch that dent

Jimmy Vesey and Joe Thornton does not make you a balanced team. Makes you look cheap and how problematic your cap space is. You don't win with Vesey on your team LOL

See that right there is a fine take. Nothing wrong with.

Calling a guy thats cracked 30 once a 30-40 goal scorer isnt. Neither is starting to say, wellllllll if he played 1-2 more minutes a night in the first month of the season he would have scored way more!

Thats just garbage that makes everyone else roll their eyes. Stick with the reasonable takes like this one.

William Softlander needs to go. He had 9 hits last season... 9

I’m very surprised that his name is being thrown out there in mock trades. His cap hit is large and it would be a lot of money that they could move out for a defenceman. But is it justifiable to trade one of your best players, who, in this past season had 31 goals and is the cheapest of the “big four”?

He’s just entering his prime and if you were to trade him you’d be taking a big hit to your offense. There’s also the fact that a number of NHL teams are trying to spend well below the cap because of financial reasons. Is there a team that would take on that contract? Probably, but I don’t believe many teams are looking into it.

There are 61 players in the NHL that make more money than Nylander and only 22 of those players had more points than him last season.

Every year, he improves drastically. He’s shown he can be a dominant puck carrier, an incredible perimeter goal scorer and someone who I believe has a role on the Toronto Maple Leafs for the rest of his career. Each NHL team needs depth in their group if they want to compete for the Stanley Cup and if you take out Nylander, your depth diminishes.

This year for the Maple Leafs is huge. If they don’t make it past the first round, again, then look for possible changes up front.

Rant over

Clearly it can go two ways with me. Id like to keep Nylander because the offence right now is NASTY. But, I would love to see a wicked top 4 group of defenseman.

How?

well, shifting from PP2 to PP1 and simply be on the ice more would tend to result in more goals. Every single one of the core 4 saw their point scoring pace increase when keefe took over, for the entire season, simply bc he was playing them 1-4 minutes more a game.

i get that that's speculation, but still idk