The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Connor Dewar from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a 2026 fourth-round pick and Dmitry Ovchinnikov.
The Maple Leafs add one last depth piece before time expires, and the Wild shed little cap in exchange for a draft pick.
Leafs Final Move Is a Depth Forward
Depending on who you ask, the Maple Leafs have many areas to tackle this trade deadline. They fixed up their defense by bringing back Ilya Lybushkin, acquiring Joel Edmundson from the Washington Capitals, and finally, to round off the deadline, a depth winger in Dewar. He is a 24-year-old forward who can play left-wing and centre and is a pending RFA this summer with arbitration rights. He comes with a cheap cap hit of $800,000, but most importantly, is an excellent penalty killer. With ten goals and four assists for 14 points in 56 games this season, Dewar mainly played on the third line at centre with Fredrick Gaudreau and Adam Beckham and on the top penalty-kill unit.
Take what you want from this trade, but for general manager Brad Treliving, it’s a cheap forward who can play center, is defensively responsible, can play on the penalty-kill unit, and could be very affordable to re-sign. Is that what the Leafs needed, though? Every Maple Leaf fan could point at one player on the market that they wish the Leafs acquired or wish they acquired before another team traded for them. At the end of the day, Treliving got what he and management saw as best for the team and were cost-effective enough to acquire.
Wild Finish With More Draft Picks
Ovchinnikov is a 21-year-old forward drafted by the Maple Leafs in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft in the fifth round. Currently playing in the AHL with the Toronto Marlies, he has seven goals and three assists for ten points in twenty games.
The Wild weren’t as busy as other teams this deadline, at least in terms of buying. With two major buyouts holding a significant chunk of their cap space back and their inconsistent play so far this season, currently third last in the Central Divison with 66 points, nine points back from the last wild card spot, the Wild decided to sell. Pending UFAs and RFAs in return for mid-round draft picks to either help build up their prospect pool or use it in future trades. Early in the week, it was announced that the Wild wouldn’t trade Marc-Andre Fleury, which shocked many with how they stood in the standings and didn’t have much to either sell or didn’t want/like the price offered.
With Dewar going, he was one of eight players entering free agency this summer either as a UFA or an RFA, and it’s often better to get something for nothing. Whether it was inconsistent play from the goaltender’s injuries to key players keeping them out of the lineup throughout the season, something had to be salvaged from this season. What they got in return for Dewar, Patrick Maroon, and Duhaime isn’t franchise-altering; they are pieces of the necessary puzzle to get this team back to their winning days. Whether that’s making trades, developing young key players, or making cap room in the offseason for big free-agent signings, moves have to be made, and general manager Bill Guerin did what he saw best for the franchise’s future.
