The Toronto Maple Leafs need an added boost down the middle at the centre position. For anyone who has followed the club this season, this is hardly breaking news. In fact, as the calendar flips to February and we inch closer to the March 7 NHL trade deadline, The Hockey Writers‘ Maple Leafs beat has done a tremendous job of leaving no stone unturned in terms of possible pivots who could make sense for Toronto as trade candidates.
Casting a wide net when it comes to speculation on the Maple Leafs’ centre targets is necessitated by the many different areas of focus that general manager (GM) Brad Treliving and the front office could have in their search. The need for help down the middle is clear (Treliving has acknowledged as much), but what the club wants from any incoming centre remains uncertain.
The Maple Leafs’ current offensive struggles have been readily apparent, so you might think that team brass would pursue an offensive-minded centre. Perhaps, however, head coach Craig Berube will push for a physical, defensive-minded addition that better suits his coaching style. Similarly, there are arguments to be made for both adding an expiring contract that helps maintain some financial flexibility this summer and acquiring a player with term who can serve as more than a short-term rental, particularly in light of a rising salary cap.
With so many names already being bandied about on the trade market, let’s take a more focused look at who Toronto could be considering depending on which of the aforementioned boxes they are hoping to check.
Offensive-Minded Centres
Scoring beyond the top two lines has been hard to come by this season. Sure, the first look at the Maple Leafs with John Tavares and Matthew Knies back healthy on Saturday night yielded four goals, but only Bobby McMann’s game-opening power play marker came from a player outside the top-six. Apart from McMann’s 15 goals, the next highest-scoring total from a non-top-six player is the eight goals that Nicholas Robertson has collected. All told, Tavares, Knies, William Nylander, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner account for 105 of the 159 goals scored by the club thus far.
In other words, acquiring someone to help spark the bottom-six is probably needed. While internal help would be a lot more cost-effective, Max Domi has struggled in the third-line centre role and is on track for a career-worst season, with just three goals thus far. Fraser Minten has gotten some opportunities as an injury fill-in, but probably isn’t ready for the role yet.
The biggest fish when it comes to offensive centres rumoured to be trade candidates is Brock Nelson. The long-time New York Islander isn’t necessarily a household name, but he has 107 goals over the last three full seasons. Now, there is no shortage of teams who could use a remarkably consistent scorer who can play down the middle, so the 33-year-old won’t come cheap. That could prove challenging for a Toronto organization that is without their 2025 first-round pick, but a depth chart of Matthews, Tavares and Nelson could be worth the steep cost.
Bargain hunting for scoring punch isn’t easy, but the Maple Leafs could also look to pursue a more balanced offence at a lower cost – both in terms of outgoing trade assets and taking on a smaller contract than Nelson’s $6 million deal. A player like Ryan Donato of the Chicago Blackhawks may not generate huge buzz, but his 15 goals on the season would instantly vault him into a tie for sixth (with McMann) in team scoring. Plus, his potential trade return and $2 million cap hit should be far more palatable than Nelson.
Defensive-Minded Centres
If Berube has any say over personnel decisions, he could push to have the front office double down on his defensive, hard-nosed style by adding players who are hard to play against, particularly as they gear up for the postseason. The other benefit of such additions is that they tend to cost less than their more offensively-inclined counterparts. If a healthy top-six and/or a blending of lines can restore some of Toronto’s offensive spark through the lineup, then perhaps adding more two-way help could be the way to go.
One name that has gained some serious traction in recent weeks is Trent Frederic of the Boston Bruins. As the Bruins continue to fall out of the playoff race, the 6-foot-3, 220-pound defensive stopper down the middle has become an intriguing source of trade speculation. Just 26 years of age, he is just coming into his own as an elite defender up front. Of course, Maple Leafs fans may remember him as the guy who scored three times in the club’s opening-round loss to Boston last spring.
If Frederic ultimately draws too much trade interest and sees his value driven up too high (or if Boston simply doesn’t want to trade with their division rivals), Toronto could pivot toward a guy like Nick Bjugstad. Something of a known quantity in what is his 13th season in the league, Bjugstad makes the most of his 6-foot-6 frame as an effective defender for the Utah Hockey Club.
Centres on Expiring Contracts
The Maple Leafs are no stranger to the classic trend of acquiring a pending free agent as essentially a rental player. In recent trade deadlines, alone, they’ve added Ryan O’Reilly, Mark Giordano, Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin (twice!) as players on expiring contracts. Whether another rental comes on board in the pursuit of help at centre or as a depth addition elsewhere, it seems likely that Treliving will again add someone who will only remain under contract through June.
As for potential targets for this year’s trade deadline, we’ve already addressed Nelson, Donato, Frederic and Bjugstad, all of whom are up for new contracts this summer. You can also add guys like Yanni Gourde and Ryan Strome into that mix.
Gourde’s recent sports hernia surgery will sideline him for 5-7 weeks, all but taking him out of trade talk. However, the Maple Leafs could see the declining 33-year-old as a buy-low candidate, someone who won’t cost much in a trade but could rediscover a playoff form that has yielded 20 goals in 83 postseason games and two Stanley Cups. Strome, meanwhile, has enjoyed some modest production (seven goals and 30 points in 52 games) as the second-leading scorer on the Anaheim Ducks, but he hasn’t matched the 2024-25 success of his brother, Dylan, in Washington (15 goals and 50 points).
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Centres With Term
Where there was once great risk and concern attached to assuming long-term contracts in a hard salary cap environment, the rising cap in the NHL has made it a shrewd option. In theory, existing contracts should be relatively cost-efficient amidst the league’s new, forthcoming financial reality. At the very least, it’s probably safe to assume that existing cap hits for similarly skilled players will be cheaper than the ones set to be signed once the cap increases come into place.
That is why, in part, rumoured trade targets Scott Laughton and O’Reilly have generated so much discussion and speculation.
Laughton, an oft-mentioned target of the Maple Leafs, would fit the need at centre, but also bring a blend of scoring, grit and physicality. What’s more, the Oakville, Ontario native is set to make $3 million next season, which would represent just over 3% of the projected $92.4 million cap. O’Reilly, meanwhile, is owed $4.5 million for each of the next two seasons, but that would be a bargain if he could come anywhere close to the 26 goals he scored last season.
With the term on Laughton and O’Reilly’s contracts standing as a positive, their acquisition cost could be high. While the Maple Leafs’ interest will surely be dependent on the asking price, there is plenty of appeal in adding the services of players of that caliber for more than just one playoff push.
The pursuit of a third-line centre might initially seem like a rather single-minded focus. Fortunately for Treliving and the Maple Leafs, there are many directions that could be taken within that search. It will be up to the front office to determine the club’s on-ice and off-ice priorities, whether they be adding offensively- or defensively-inclined players to the fold, not to mention players who come off the books this summer or are poised to stick around beyond this season. Even with a clear positional need, there is plenty to be decided between now and March 7.
