3 trades the Toronto Maple Leafs need to make this offseason

Here are three trades that could help right the ship for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After a tumultuous regular season that included a fall from grace from one of the league’s most prominent coaches, the team’s prized phenom admitting to “quitting” during a game and an embarrassing loss at the hands of a Zamboni driver, the Toronto Maple Leafs limped into the 24-team playoff.

Though reaching the Stanley Cup Playoffs at least gives your club a chance to win it all, it goes without saying the 2019-20 season didn’t quite instill confidence among the Toronto faithful.

The Maple Leafs are a team that can no longer cover up its glaring deficiencies on defense and in the bottom of the lineup through scoring prowess alone. Despite strong seasons from John Tavares, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, the Leafs fall short in just about every other category.

Add in the fact that the team’s cap situation is growing more dire, the Leafs are on the precipice of a new era in their franchise. General Manager Kyle Dubas’s next handful of decisions can very well decide whether the team will reach a new level and finally become contenders, or continue to toil in mediocrity, ushering in the failure of a rebuild that started just over five years ago.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Trade for Alexandar Georgiev

Trading for a legitimate backup goaltender should be Kyle Dubas’s biggest priority this offseason. Considering the Leafs cap situation and potential options on the free agent market, trading for Alexandar Georgiev may be their best bet.

Georgiev is set to become a restricted free agent this offseason and could be cost controlled on his next contract. The Rangers appear to be set on running with Igor Shesterkin as the goalie of the future and it’s nearly impossible to move Henrik Lundqvist’s $8.5 million cap hit. This would make Georgiev the odd-man-out.

The Leafs, still full of young assets in the AHL that a rebuilding Rangers team could make use of, should swoop in and trade for the young Bulgarian net-minder.

It may seem odd to levy the importance of a backup goalie to this extent, but the Leafs are in dire straits. Prior to the 2019-20 season’s premature ending, the Maple Leafs had 36 wins. 29 of which came at the hands of Frederick Andersen.

Michael Hutchinson, Jack Campbell and Kasimir Kaskisuo combined for just seven wins for the Leafs in 18 games. Not great.

What’s even worse is that it took until game 37 of the regular season for the Maple Leafs to register their first win via backup goalie — a 4-1 decision against the Detroit Red Wings on December 21.

Considering the Eastern Conferences boasts backup goalies like Tristan Jarry, Brian Elliott, Braden Holtby (?) and Jaroslav Halak, not being able to rely on your second goalie to win a game until half-way through the season just isn’t good enough.

Adding Georgiev, who has strung together save percentages of .918, .914 and .910 through the first three seasons of his career, would give the Leafs one of the better 1-2 punches in the crease, not just in the Eastern Conference, but in the entire league.