The Toronto Maple Leafs were quiet until recently when they chose to acquire Ilya Lyubushkin from the Anaheim Ducks in a three-team deal involving the Carolina Hurricanes, who helped facilitate the trade. They brought in Lyubushkin for 25 percent of his contract, as the Ducks retained 50 percent and the Hurricanes retained 25 percent. While he will help the Maple Leafs’ depth heading into the postseason, he is a secondary option after they lost out on acquiring Chris Tanev, who was recently traded to the Dallas Stars.
Related: Maple Leafs Roundtable: 2024 Trade Deadline
In this article though, we are going to take a quick look at who won’t be leaving this season. The Maple Leafs will surely be looking to make some more additions and will have to part with some players if they hope to improve for a postseason run, but there are a few players who are simply untouchable.
Core Five Stays
Starting with the obvious, the Maple Leafs will not be trading Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, or John Tavares. Captain Tavares will be a Maple Leaf for the remainder of his contract as the team’s leader and a consistent offensive producer. This season, he has scored 17 goals and added 26 assists for 43 points through 57 games. Matthews has exploded this season and scored a league-leading 53 goals through 58 games while also adding 25 assists for 78 points. Nylander currently leads the Maple Leafs in points with 32 goals and 50 assists for 82 points through 59 games.
Marner and Rielly fill out the core five of the roster, as well as the top five scorers on the Maple Leafs up until this point. Marner sits third on the team with 23 goals and 50 assists for 73 points through 58 games, while Rielly has racked up seven goals and added 36 assists for 43 points through 54 games, tied for fourth on the team with Tavares. Nylander recently re-signed with the Maple Leafs on a massive eight-year extension after some rumours surrounded the team that he might get traded, but since then, these five haven’t been anywhere near trade rumours.
Maple Leafs Likely to Keep Top Prospects
It has become a common theme for teams to move their prospects for players who can help them in the short term, and while the Maple Leafs have a solid prospect pool, there are two prospects they will surely refuse to part with. Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten are the Maple Leafs’ top prospects and have been having ridiculous seasons with their respective junior teams. Cowan has scored 29 goals and added 50 assists for 79 points through 45 games with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and sits 11th in the entire league in scoring.
Minten started the season with the Maple Leafs as a rookie and got four games under his belt before he was reassigned to the Western Hockey League (WHL), which should be more than enough to prove how highly the organization views him. Since getting reassigned, Minten played seven games with the Kamloops Blazers, scoring three goals and adding seven assists for ten points through seven games before getting traded to the Saskatoon Blades. With the Blades, he has scored 15 goals and added 15 assists for 30 points through 26 games. Both of them will almost surely be staying with the Maple Leafs past the deadline this season.
What’s Next for the Maple Leafs?
The Maple Leafs are back in action on Saturday (March 2) in a matchup against the New York Rangers. They will be looking to continue riding the momentum from their win against the Arizona Coyotes, which saw them win 4-2. Hopefully, the team can make the right decisions at the trade deadline and not trade anyone who shouldn’t get moved to bring in the upgrades they need for a deep playoff run.
