Toronto Maple Leafs Should Sell On Any UFA's At Deadline
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a unique scenario where none of their nine pending unrestricted free agents are expected to return next year.
With that, the Toronto Maple Leafs should be selling on all of them for whatever teams are willing to send back.
Do the Leafs need more draft picks? No, not really. They already have a great pool of young players to move forward with, but pending UFA’s normally only generate draft picks and that’s OK.
The following players are UFA’s at the end of the season:
Matt Hunwick
Roman Polak
Ben Smith
Milan Michalek
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Brooks Laich
Colin Greening
Curtis McElhinney
Stephane Robidas
Andrew Campbell
None of those players should be wearing blue and white next season, so it makes sense to shop all of them regardless of where the Toronto Maple Leafs are in the standings come March 1st.
Of the nine players, none make a significant impact to the organization. Now, are you going to be able to deal all of them? Of course not, but there may be a small market for players like Smith, Hunwick and Polak based on perceived value around the league.
Last year the Leafs fleeced the San Jose Sharks in the Polak deal and it would be hard to turn down another second round pick, even if Mike Babock loves him.
These nine players aren’t part of the future – and they’re barely part of the present – so turning them into something before they wander off into hockey abyss July 1st is a positive thing.
Losing Polak and Hunwick doesn’t hurt the Leafs playoff hopes. What it does, perhaps as another positive, is force Babcock to play Marincin and Corrado (if Babs doesn’t exile him somewhere before then) which is a positive in itself.
Trading one, two, three, or however many, of these players doesn’t mean the Leafs are sellers. It means they’re smart. It’s pretty easy to evaluate their contributions to the team on the ice this year, look at the rest of the roster, and feel alright about moving on.
Mark Hunter may not need more draft picks, but it’s never a bad thing to give a wizard a few more wands to wave around.
