Breaking: Patrick Marleau has been traded.

A big price for the Leafs.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Breaking: Patrick Marleau has been traded.
Daniel Lea/CSM/Zuma

The Toronto Maple Leafs have managed to unload the contract of veteran forward Patrick Marleau, but that move has come with a very heavy price. 

According to an official announcement from the Toronto Maple Leafs organization, the team has acquired a sixth round draft pick in 2020 from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for the aforementioned Patrick Marleau as well as a Toronto's first round draft pick at the 2020 NHL Entry Draft as well as Toronto's 7th round pick in that very same draft year. Obviously this is a huge price for the Maple Leafs to pay, but it is the cost of the contract they gave Marleau 2 years ago in an effort to lure him away from the San Jose Sharks organization.

Of course the big story here is that Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas was forced to give up a high quality pick in order to get Marleau's massive cap hit of $6.25 million off of the Maple Leafs salary cap. It is an especially difficult pill to swallow due to the fact that Marleau has only one year remaining on his current deal, so the first round pick the Leafs have given up will only earn them cap savings for a single season here. 

It has to be said that the first round pick in 2020 is a conditional one, should the Leafs somehow collapse and finish near the bottom of the league the pick is Top 10 protected. This means if the Leafs were to pick in the top 10 next season the pick would become their first round selection in 2021 instead of 2020.

There was no question in anyone's mind that general manager Kyle Dubas had to find a way to get Marleau, and potentially several other players, off the books this summer to make room for some of the huge contracts now on his roster. The question now will be whether or not the Maple Leafs fan base is able to stomach the cost of doing business when you consider that the pick could have been the next stand out player for the organization. Given that we are talking about a future draft pick here, I suppose only time will tell with this one.


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