After failed trade attempts, Leafs eye desperate top-six move!

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been keeping this offseason, but there is still one significant priority that general manager Brad Treliving must address in the void up front from the loss of Mitch Marner. While Treliving and head coach Craig Berube will need to figure out where all the new pieces are going to fit in, rumours have now linked the Maple Leafs to pretty much every other second-liner on the market.

Insider Frank Seravalli is adamant that the Leafs are focused on the urgent plan to replace Marner and how they might have to go about it. Seravalli pointed out how Toronto has missed out on several names on the market, but that has not discouraged them from getting a move made:

“I’d imagine the Leafs aren’t done, if there’s a move to be made out there, if you think back to…all the different names that have moved, they’ve…been in on…60-75% of those players.”

The Maple Leafs have been linked in past rumours to players like Calgary Flames’ Nazem Kadri, St. Louis Blues’ Brayden Schenn and Pittsburgh Penguins’ Bryan Rust, though they come at varying costs. Which one will bring the needed punch and can the Maple Leafs make one of those trades happen?

Reports have surfaced that Kadri would be willing to waive his no-move clause specifically for a deal back to the Maple Leafs. He has four years remaining on his contract, makes $7 million against the salary cap, and has a full no-movement clause through 2025-26.

A guy like Rust, who’s got no trade protection whatsoever, might be interested nonetheless at the chance to compete for a contender like Toronto. However, his $ $5,125,000 AAV for the next three years, the Penguins might instead move him to a team with ample cap space.

Toronto needs to make something big happen ahead of the 2025-26 season. Fans will be impatient to see what the team can do without Marner up front, and if his loss becomes a nightmare, fans will demand a trade quick to get someone in the top-six to replace him.

Treliving is working overtime to get a trade done, one he can pull off, to get the void filled before the start of the 2025-26 season.