swap ilya with ryan, reason being that ryan is also a good defensive player, and needs more ice time for dubas and keef to see what they got there

Wouldn’t take out Engvall, he drives that fourth line

Now that Liljegren is stuck in AHL and Leafs have acquired a depth D, how about trading Holl+Liljegren+1st for half-retained Klingberg?

They have the cap for it, too.

I'd keep Engvall in the lineup. Maybe have Dzingel and Simmonds on a rotation depending on matchups. They'll likely both be playing when Kase inevitably gets injured.

I heard Klingberg is bad defensively so idk

Klingberg is the wrong type of defenceman for Toronto; he doesn't add enough value to Toronto to justify that much of our future.

Not bad, per se, but it's not his strong suit. He's a more offensive version of Morgan Rielly, really.

How bout not.

Klingberg is a glorified version of Tyson Barrie - actually calling him a more offensive version of Morgan Rielly is a huge insult to Rielly, Klingberg’s worse. Klingberg would fit in Toronto the same way Barrie did, which he didn’t. He would need 1st unit PP time and sheltered minutes at 5v5 to be successful and that’s not happening in Toronto and not happening for the price of Liljegren and a 1st round pick plus more. Rielly has the 1st unit PP locked down and Sandin has the 2nd locked down, and with Muzzin struggling defensively this season there’s no one to shelter Klingberg with so he just doesn’t fit in.

Toronto’s likely not interested in him and definitely not at the price of Liljegren, 1st, +

That Tyson Barrie argument isn't exactly valid, because Barrie has consistently benefitted throughout his career by the fact that he's had the chance to play with the absolute elite talent (MacKinnon in COL, Matthews and Marner in TOR and McDavid and Draisaitl in EDM) in the league, which had shown in his numbers massively. Klingberg hasn't had this kind of luxury.

Klingberg has played his whole career in Dallas and have seen many different playstyles, starting from Ruff's and Hitchcock's all out offense, and then Montgomery's and Bowness' very defensive systems. Naturally as an offensive talent a team with more offensive mindset benefits the guy, which also explains the drop off in his numbers from what they were in 2015-18 compared to 2019-22.

Even still since Jan 1st 2019 Klingberg is 16th in all D scoring, 8 points behind Morgan Rielly in a consistently worse team offensively, as since that date Leafs have scored 737 goals compared to 574 goals scored by Dallas. I think these are impressive scored for an offensive D-man in a defense oriented team.

Now I'm not going to say that Klingberg is better than Rielly by any means, but as for saying that Klingberg is more offensive version of Rielly...well I don't think I'm that far off in saying this too. Calling him a glorified version of Barrie is in my opinion more insulting to Klingberg than calling Klingberg more offensive version of Rielly is to Rielly himself, respectively. Barrie is basically Mike Hoffman, just playing the D position. He'd likely be better as a forward. He has more points than both Rielly and Klingberg does from this timeframe but he has basically no defense. Even Klingberg has more.

As for fit...you might have a point there. As for interest...I'll leave that with a quote from Frank Seravalli

Klingberg would be a great addition to any team but he's simply not worth that many assets to Toronto as he's not the type of defenceman the Leafs need. Now if you were giving him for a 2nd round pick I'm sure the Leafs would jump on that deal but he just doesn't add enough value to justify Holl+Liljegren+1st.

Add to that his contract demands are kinda ridiculous and the Stars are more desperate to move him than any team is to acquire him imo which drops his trade value.

Actually Dallas is not desperate to move him at all. Gaglardi, our owner, wants this team to make it to the playoffs so right now it's likely that they won't be selling anyone this year, but rather they're going to be buyers. Me as a Dallas fan don't think this is a good idea at all as we're far too inconsistent to challenge the likes of Avs in the first round, so I personally am in favor of moving assets like Klingberg for futures as it helps us to be better in the future as this year we're simply not good enough.

Klingberg for a second round pick would be such a joke though. He's still easily a top4 D-man in every team in the league and top pair in most of them. I'd still want a prospect (preferably RHD as we're lacking those) plus first for the guy. Holl was added here simply for cap reasons.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to say he's worth a 2nd round pick that was just an example to explain that Toronto could definitely be interested for the right price but I definitely don't think that price is what you're looking for.

I'm also opposed to self rentals I've seen it happen too many times and not work out. I don't think the Stars will be cup contenders, the Avs are probably the team out of the West to beat and I don't see that happening in a 7 game series.

Klingberg's ask is frankly way too much (8Mx8) for what he brings to a team.