The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a crunch at centre this season. Franchise superstar and captain Auston Matthews has been shelved for much of the 2024-25 season with an injury that he admitted might not fully heal (from “Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews unsure if he’ll fully get past injury this season: ‘I hope so,”’ The Athletic, Jan. 1, 2025), and as a result, utility centreman David Kampf is playing well above his weight class on the second line.
When Matthews inevitably returns, he’ll push Kampf back to the fourth line, where he should be, but the Maple Leafs will have to admit that their fourth line is a black hole offensively with either Steven Lorentz or Ryan Reaves on it. However, the organization has limited cap space, with current projections having them accruing $1.36 million in trade deadline space. This means management will have their work cut out for them if there are no other long-term injuries.
To make a trade work, they will have to unload contracts or add a third team willing to retain up to 75% of those contracts. It’s a tough situation, but most Cup contenders are in the same spot. With this in mind, here’s a look at three players from the Western Conference that the Maple Leafs should target in a trade:
Mikael Granlund
On a San Jose Sharks team that was expected to be a bottom-feeder, Mikael Granlund has established himself as an offensive force. He has compiled a team-leading 35 points in 39 games and is tied for third in goals (11) behind Tyler Toffoli (15) and future superstar Macklin Celebrini (12). In the past two seasons, he has averaged more than 20 minutes nightly, sporting a career-high of 21:11 this season. He has surpassed the 60-point threshold four times in his career and is on pace for a career-best 71. While he likely won’t beat the 26-goal campaign he had in 2016-17 with the Minnesota Wild, he should pot at least 20 for the third time.
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There is room for improvement on defence, but honestly, that’s not what the Maple Leafs need — they rank fifth in the NHL in 5v5 goals allowed per 60 minutes. Their bottom six could use a play-driving centre to move the talents around. Kampf and Conor Dewar both struggle to drive play offensively, and when the team is healthy, they stifle the bottom-six from reaching their potential in the offensive zone.
Granlund, meanwhile, generates the fourth-most expected goals per 60 minutes (xGF/60) on the Sharks and generates significantly more than either Kampf or Dewar. He plays in all situations and plays the physical brand of hockey that head coach Craig Berube covets so often.
In terms of acquisition cost, the Maple Leafs would be in an admittedly difficult spot here. Granlund is in the last season of a contract that carries a $5 million cap hit. With 75% retention, that becomes $1.25 million, which would fit under their trade deadline cap space, assuming neither Jani Hakaanpa nor Calle Jarnkrok returns before the playoffs.
If they decide on the three-team trade route, management would likely have to send their 2025 fifth-round draft selection to the third team, which would retain the additional 25%. For the Sharks, who would be dealing a nearly point-per-game pace player, it’s realistic that they would require Toronto’s second-round selection and a moderately to highly-touted defensive prospect like Ben Danford or Noah Chadwick.
San Jose has a plethora of young NHL-calibre forwards but could add to their defense corps’ prospective outlook. They have offensive and two-way players like Sam Dickinson, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Henry Thrun but could look for more of the defensive, third-pairing player (with occasional offensive upside) that Danford or Chadwick provide.
If management decides they prefer to bypass the third party for an additional 25% retention, the Maple Leafs would have to part with a young player or two to find that extra cap relief. I expect the draft pick to stay the same — a second-rounder — and that 26-year-old fan favorite Simon Benoit would be a fair price. Benoit’s underlying numbers are decent but nothing to write home about, and the Sharks may be interested in having him to relegate overrated defenseman Mario Ferraro to third-pairing minutes while cutting Jan Rutta’s ice time to a seventh-defenseman role.
The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, would be able to give newly-extended Philippe Myers the minutes he has earned while giving criminally underrated defenseman Conor Timmins a shot at a consistent opportunity.
Yanni Gourde
Elsewhere in the Pacific Division, the mediocre Seattle Kraken could and should be looking to offload any players they can to bolster their young, developing talent. Their playoff run gave a false sense of security to their roster — stud goaltender Joey Daccord was mostly responsible for the team’s success, and without him for parts of the season, their roster has been exposed. As a result, they may be inclined to sell Yanni Gourde, who is in the last season of a $5.167 million average annual value (AAV) contract, to a contender. As with Granlund, this may prove tricky because of his high cap hit, but the player they would be acquiring would be worth the price.
Gourde, though he is having a down season, has proven time and again that he is worth middle-six minutes on a contender. Outside of running the Tampa Bay Lightning’s electric third line with Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow during their Cup runs, he has scored a minimum of 30 points in each of the last seven seasons and is on pace to do so again in 2024-25, with 16 points in 35 games (an 82-game pace of 37 points).
He is a three-time 20-plus goal-scorer and has put up as many as 64 points in a season. He is physical, gritty, tough in board battles, and drives the play offensively quite well while still holding up defensively. He’s been a product of some poor deployment and bad luck this season and likely deserves to show up on the scoresheet more than he has. He is fifth on the Kraken in xGF/60 and fifth in expected goal share (xGF%).
The price for Gourde’s services would be a smidge steeper than what they would have to pay for Granlund since Gourde has a much stronger impact, better two-way play, playoff experience, and has been healthier throughout his career. I expect a two-team trade would not work because the Maple Leafs should be unwilling to part with any of their forward corps, and the Kraken are likely looking for more offensive help than defensive, considering their blue-line complexion. Vince Dunn, Brandon Montour, Adam Larsson, Jamie Oleksiak, and Ryker Evans make up a strong blue line that Seattle probably doesn’t need to add much to.
With that in mind, I would again assume the third team, which retains the additional 25%, gets a fifth-round selection. Seattle, this time, should be looking for young, NHL-ready forwards with offensive upside on top of the second-round selection they would be interested in from Toronto. Nikita Grebyonkin comes to mind as a middle-six winger with excellent goal-scoring upside, simply because Gourde isn’t the type of player that would warrant acquiring someone like Easton Cowan or Fraser Minten.
Nick Bjugstad
For bottom-six centre options on a budget, it doesn’t get much better than Nick Bjugstad of the Utah Hockey Club. Sure, the playoffs aren’t out of the question for Utah, but more likely they will end up on the outside looking in come the trade deadline in March and should look to sell their expiring contracts for youngsters and draft picks that they can use to build on their great first season as an organization.
Bjugstad, their third-line centre, is in the last season of a contract with a $2.1 million cap hit. He scored 22 goals last season in a 45-point campaign and has always produced more than he should, considering his limited roles. He is listed at 6-foot-5, 205 pounds by the NHL (though some sources have him as an inch taller and a bit heavier) and plays with a physical edge. He has visited the playoffs four times, though three of them ended in first-round defeats. His underlying metrics are especially strong on the offensive side, though he was defensively excellent as recent as two seasons ago.
Utah has a strong centre prospect in Cole Beaudoin, who could push for NHL time as soon as next season. At 32, Bjugstad doesn’t necessarily fit the complexion of Utah as a team with young, budding talent but fits very will with a contender looking for a bottom-six veteran with scoring upside.
Utah’s forward corps is more or less set, with cornerstones Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, and Nick Schmaltz leading the charge and a couple of highly-touted winger prospects in Tij Iginla and Daniil But. On the defensive side, they have some up-and-comers in Dmitri Simashev and Maveric Lamoreux, but there isn’t much to brag about outside of Mikhail Sergachev, Sean Durzi, and John Marino.
They, like San Jose, have room for improvement in terms of acquiring defensive youngsters. The Maple Leafs and Utah could land on an NHLer-oriented trade that would be mutually beneficial. Bjugstad, at 50% retention, would cost $1.05 million against the cap, and 26-year-old two-way defender Timmins, who likely deserves NHL minutes despite not receiving them in Toronto, makes $1.1 million. If Toronto sent Timmins and a mid-round pick in this or next season’s draft for Bjugstad at 50% retention, both teams would likely be satisfied with the trade.
Relieving Kampf of Duties Would Lessen Salary Cap Woes
The Maple Leafs’ main issues in acquiring a centre are focused on the salary cap, with limited space equaling limited trade mobility. If they want to increase the offensive output of the bottom six — like they should — offloading Kampf as a cap dump would provide them with more flexibility and better opportunities to acquire centres who are offensively capable. He and his $2.4 million cap hit for the next three seasons have become liabilities to the team, providing neither offensive output nor defensive aptitude or utility.
With Kampf theoretically gone, this opens up a window for the Maple Leafs to acquire one of the higher-profile centres like Granlund or Gourde without the need for salary cap gymnastics and potentially opens the door for them to acquire a bigger gun altogether. It’s become clear through Matthews’ absence that a centre acquisition is vital, and they would be better equipped to do so without the burden of Kampf’s contract.
