The Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t want to be in this spot.
The reality, though, is that they did most of what they could hope to do before Friday’s NHL trade deadline.
Bobby McMann was sent to the Seattle Kraken.
Scott Laughton is heading to the Los Angeles Kings.
And Nicolas Roy is off to the Colorado Avalanche.
MORE: How Connor McDavid lost at the NHL trade deadline
The overall body of work caused The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus to write that the Maple Leafs were a “winner” this deadline season.
“The Leafs have done the impossible: They’ve made themselves sympathetic figures,” Lazerus writes. “Not only are they mired in a miserable season while facing a difficult retool around Auston Matthews and William Nylander, who are losing prime seasons to this process, but they’re probably not even going to reap the benefits of a lost campaign.”
Lazerus thought the Roy trade was a key one.
“So, let’s throw the Leafs a bone and give them a stick tap for somehow extracting a first-round pick (albeit a very late one) from Colorado for an underperforming third-line center in Nic Roy,” Lazerus writes. “It’s a huge win for Toronto, which badly needed one. The return for Bobby McMann (a second and a fourth) is a little underwhelming, but they had to get something for him, and they did. Good enough.”
Toronto ended up holding on to Oliver Ekman-Larsson, which is probably just a sign that they didn’t get what they were seeking for him. He’ll be back for next season, so it’s not a terrible outcome.
In the end, the Maple Leafs didn’t have a ton to be done, but they mostly made the most of it.