The Toronto Maple Leafs will be active before the trade deadline and will likely put an emphasis on forwards.
The website PuckPedia‘s PuckGM tool lets users create their own trades. One user proposed a deal that would see the Maple Leafs acquire Jesse Puljujarvi from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Maple Leafs acquire:
Penguins acquire:
The proposed deal would be a one-for-one swap and does make sense for both teams with where they are at.
The Maple Leafs would acquire Puljujarvi who was selected fourth overall in the 2016 NHL draft. The forward hasn’t lived up to the hype, but he still is a good NHL forward. Puljujarvi could be a third-line forward for the Maple Leafs and add some depth scoring to the roster. This season, he’s skated in 18 games recording 3 goals and 5 assists for 8 points. He’s in the final year of his two-year $1.6 million deal.
In return, the Maple Leafs would deal Robertson who requested a trade this summer and could use a change of scenery. Robertson ended up signing a one-year $875,000 deal but he still has yet to be given a big role with the Maple Leafs lineup. This season, he skated in 17 games recording 1 goal and 0 assists.
Maple Leafs Have A Depleted Forward Group
Toronto will likely look to acquire forwards as the Maple Leafs have been dealing with some key injuries.
Toronto currently has Auston Matthews, Max Domi, Max Pacioretty, Calle Jarnkrok, and David Kampf all out with injuries. The biggest name is Matthews who is the Maple Leafs’ captain, so Puljujarvi could add some scoring to the lineup while he is out.
Matthews recently traveled to Germany to get treatment for an undisclosed injury. However, Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving says he will return to the lineup soon.
“He wants to play,” Treliving said. “But he also knows that we’ve got the long game in mind here, so he’s doing well. He’s been doing all his workouts and all that stuff. So he wants to play. I mean, that’s what he does, right? But he’ll be back, hopefully, like I said, soon, here in the not-too-distant future.”
Matthews has skated in 13 games recording 5 goals and 6 assists for 11 points. He hasn’t played since November 3.
Penguins Could Begin Rebuild
Pittsburgh is off to a slow start this season and the Penguins could soon begin trading off players for prospects and draft picks.
Pittsburgh already traded Lars Eller as Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas says the team wanted to get younger.
“We appreciate everything Lars did here, but we just think it’s in the best interest of our team to continue to give those younger players opportunity and see what they’ve got, see they can bring some energy and a boost to our team,” Dubas said.
Although that could signal the beginning of a rebuild, Dubas says going into a full rebuild could be tough to do.
“I’m a firm believer that if you throw everything overboard, you really have to be careful what you wish for, because you could go a long time before you’re back to being a competitive and contending team,” Dubas said. “So, our focus is on trying to, as I always say, as urgently as possible bring in (what we can) using whatever means we have.”
Pittsburgh is 7-10-4 to begin the season and in 7th place in the Metro division.
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