Maple Leafs Missed What Nicolas Roy Could Have Given Them

Every now and then, a player leaves a team, and you look back and wonder whether the team ever really figured out what it had. That’s where I am with Nicolas Roy and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Roy came to Toronto last summer as part of the sign-and-trade involving Mitch Marner and the Vegas Golden Knights. He wasn’t a flashy acquisition, and nobody was expecting him to suddenly become a 30-goal scorer. But he was a big, experienced centre who had won a Stanley Cup, played a strong defensive game, won faceoffs and had spent years doing the kind of work that doesn’t always show up in the box score.

Then, less than a year later, Toronto traded him to the Colorado Avalanche at the deadline for a conditional 2027 first-round pick. From a trade-management standpoint, that’s hard to criticize. But it does leave me with a question. Did the Maple Leafs ever really figure out how to use Nic Roy?

Roy Never Quite Settled in Toronto

His numbers weren’t great. Roy played 59 games for Toronto and finished with five goals and 20 points while averaging under 15 minutes a night. That’s a long way from the player who had put up at least 13 goals and 13 assists in each of his previous four seasons with Vegas.

But I don’t think the numbers tell the whole story. Roy had already shown in Vegas what kind of player he was. He wasn’t supposed to drive the offence. He wasn’t supposed to be the guy carrying a line. He was a third-line centre who could win faceoffs, defend, play physically and make life difficult for the other team.

There is value in having a player who knows exactly what his job is. In Toronto, I’m not sure Roy ever had that same clarity. The Maple Leafs spent much of the season looking for answers. Lines changed. Roles changed. Players moved up and down the lineup.

When a player is constantly being asked to do something a little different, sometimes the thing he does best gets lost.

When Roy Got to Colorado, Things Changed for Him

This is the part that makes the whole thing interesting. When Roy arrived in Colorado, it was much easier to see where he fit.

The Avalanche didn’t need him to become something he wasn’t. They needed a strong third-line centre who could provide defensive responsibility, win faceoffs and give some support to a team already built around stars such as Nathan MacKinnon and Brock Nelson.

Suddenly, the job description was pretty simple. Sometimes that’s all a player needs.

I’m not saying Roy was secretly a star waiting to break out. He wasn’t. I’m saying there is a difference between a player not being good enough and a team not finding the best way to use the player it has. Those are different things.

Toronto Still Got Something Valuable in Return for Roy

Now, to be fair, the Maple Leafs didn’t simply lose Roy for nothing. They turned him into a conditional 2027 first-round pick, one that could potentially shift to an unprotected 2028 Colorado first depending on how the conditions play out.

For a depth centre on an expiring contract, that’s a pretty good piece of business. So I’m not arguing that the trade was a mistake. I’m asking a different question. As I keep looking backward at the last two seasons of how players were deployed, I saw a number of things that didn’t make sense to me. Outside of Roy, there are questions about how Matias Maccelli and Scott Laughton were used (or not used).

What if Roy was another one of those players? What if he were useful to Toronto all along, but the organization never quite found the right place for him? That matters because the Maple Leafs have spent years looking for players who can handle difficult minutes, win faceoffs and provide some defensive stability.

There Were Aspects of Roy’s Game That Maple Leafs Fans Never Saw

Roy could do more things than he showed. Toronto decided that the draft pick was more valuable than keeping him. That’s reasonable. But if Roy settles into Colorado and becomes exactly the player the Avalanche wanted, Maple Leafs fans can still wonder about the other side of the transaction.

Not whether Toronto got a good return. The team did okay. The more interesting question is whether the Maple Leafs ever got the best version of Nicolas Roy while he was wearing the blue and white. This was one time when a trade could be good business and still leave you wondering about what might have been.