Leafs Predicted to Sign Big Name Center Before Trade Deadline

Since Auston Matthews was drafted in the summer of 2016, the Toronto Maple Leafs have never missed the playoffs.

How many playoff series have they won in all that time? One.

Come trade deadline season, it’s never a question of whether the Maple Leafs will be buyers or sellers because they always throw their hat in the ring.

Three games passed the season’s halfway mark, the Maple Leafs lead the Atlantic Division by three points at 27-15-2 and general manager Brad Treliving is laying out the plans of who he plans to acquire for this spring’s attempt to make a deeper run at the Cup.

The top priority is adding a middle-six center that can support stars in Auston Matthews and John Tavares.

“We’ve got lots of guys who can play [center],” Treliving said. “Is it an area that we continue to try to upgrade? I would say this: The guys at the top of the food chain are pretty darn good. Auston [Matthews], and how can you talk anything but positively about the year John [Tavares] has had? So to say you’re going to go and get somebody above that, I don’t think that’s realistic. Is there ways that we can continue to look at adding to that? Is that an area that we’d like to continue to look at? Sure, it’s one that we, probably along with about 15 or 18 other teams, are looking at.”

Given the market’s options and the lack of probability that the Leafs would be able to afford adding a prolific scorer at the center position, the priority will likely be finding someone who can play more of a full 200-foot game.

“You want good players, right? If there’s one out there that fits, reliable on both sides of the puck, certainly somebody that can add offence, all those types of things,” Treliving said. “What you want and sometimes what’s available are two different things.”

One caveat is that the Maple Leafs don’t have a first-round pick in the upcoming draft to use for trade capital. Their best draft assets would be a 2025 second rounder and first rounders in 2026 and 2027.

The top three players on TSN’s trade bait list are all centers: J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson and Brock Nelson, but these guys are out of price range and wouldn’t fit cohesively on the Maple Leafs’ third line.

A little ways down the board is Philadelphia Flyers center Scott Laughton, who becomes an unrestricted free agent after next season. He wields much of the attributes that Toronto would be looking for to slide in for support as a defense-first center that has 31 points through 42 games.

The next two centers are the Seattle Kraken’s Yanni Gourde and the Nashville Predators’ Ryan O’Reilly, who would be reuniting with Toronto. Gourde would be a rental, making him the most realistic get, while O’Reilly has another two years on his contract.

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