SEATTLE — The day after the Lightning sent five picks out the door for Tanner Jeannot, the Maple Leafs decided to pony up and add even more ammunition for what’s shaping up to be a monster first-round playoff series.
In: Jake McCabe, Sam Lafferty, and a pair of conditional late-round picks in 2024 and 2025.
Out: A top-10 protected first-round pick in 2025, a second-rounder in 2026, Joey Anderson, and minor leaguer Pavel Gogolev.
Chicago will eat 50 percent of McCabe’s contract, which still has another two years left after this one. This means the Leafs get him for $2 million on the cap for three playoff runs, potentially.
Lafferty, crucially, also has another year left on his contract at just $1.15 million.
In short, these are not just rentals for GM Kyle Dubas.
Also worth noting: The Leafs dealt no roster regulars in either this deal or the one for Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari earlier this month.
This trade attempts to do two things:
1. Playoff-proof a defence — for this year and future years — that won’t have Jake Muzzin.
2. Deepen a bottom-six that already added Acciari.
GO DEEPER
NHL trade grades: Maple Leafs get high marks for adding Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty
First, the defence.
The Leafs needed another guy in Muzzin’s absence to chew up top-four minutes and ease some of the burdens 39-year-old Mark Giordano has assumed. McCabe is a solid defender, unflashy, boring even. He’s an innings eater. He’ll bring some snarl, block shots, kill penalties, and provide a (slightly) heavier body (6-foot-1, 204 pounds) and meaner presence in front of the Leafs’ net.
He’s one more guy that head coach Sheldon Keefe can trust to put on the ice late in a close playoff game (though I’m still not sure he plays those minutes ahead of Giordano when the chips are down).
Unlike Vladislav Gavrikov, another potential addition, McCabe can sling the puck pretty good out of his zone.
He’ll fit in well with the Leafs that way.
Also helpful: He’s a left shot who can play both sides.
Keefe could conceivably play McCabe with any of Morgan Rielly, TJ Brodie, Justin Holl (assuming he’s sticking around) or even Giordano. Time will tell if the Leafs can construct a top four that’s stiff enough to slow down Tampa’s top line, and others that come after, if all goes well.
McCabe has spent big chunks of this season playing alongside Seth Jones on Chicago’s top pair.
He’s top-four insurance beyond this season too, which matters with Muzzin’s future uncertain and Holl due to become a UFA.
The Leafs now have Rielly, Brodie, McCabe, Giordano, Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren, and Conor Timmins all under contract next season.
It’s possible that someone from the bottom tier of that bunch moves out, whether it’s before Friday or more likely, in the summer. The Leafs may just prefer to keep their depth for the time being and push Timmins down the depth chart another rung.
McCabe will push someone out of the lineup at playoff time. Sandin feels like the likeliest candidate at the moment.
The real question is how much better he makes the Leafs’ defence. He felt like a marginal upgrade to me. But maybe the Leafs simply decided they would rather add McCabe for three playoff runs on a deal that will likely deliver value than pay up for Gavrikov, a pending UFA who will cost huge money this offseason, or shoot even bigger with Mattias Ekholm, who will be 33 soon and comes at a cost of $6.25 million on the cap for another three seasons after this one.
McCabe will be 30 in October. He’s yet to play in an NHL playoff game and has spent his entire career playing for mediocre teams in Buffalo and Chicago. That might not mean anything at all, just that he’s yet to experience playoff hockey.
Lafferty, who will turn 28 later this month, played one playoff game for the Penguins in 2020. He feels like a perfect addition to the bottom six.
I was banging the drum for Lafferty and Acciari as helpful pieces to acquire in recent weeks. The Leafs decided to acquire them both.
There’s lots to like. Lafferty plays a hard, heavy, and competitive game and will fit in well with Acciari on what’s suddenly become a real meat-and-potatoes-style fourth line, ideal for playoff hockey. Lafferty is even an option to play higher in the lineup if, say, Pierre Engvall is scuffling. Like Acciari, Lafferty is tenacious and physical, and he’s shown he can even score a bit too (10 goals). He’s also another centre in a mix that’s gotten a lot deeper in the past couple weeks.
Lafferty is another right-shooting option in the faceoff circle. He’s won over 52 percent of his draws this season.
He will surely figure into the Leafs penalty-killing mix.
The fact that he’s signed for next season is also important, what with Alex Kerfoot, David Kampf, Zach Aston-Reese, and Engvall all due to be free agents.
Adding Lafferty means someone — Aston-Reese? — will get pushed out of the lineup.
The Leafs will be approximately $1 million over the cap whenever Matt Murray is activated off of LTIR, which means another move (trade or waivers) is coming.
Good on the Leafs’ front office for dealing out more futures, particularly the first-round pick in 2025. This is not the time to be clutching assets that won’t be of any help for years, if at all. This team is built to win now.
The time to go for it is now. With O’Reilly, Acciari, McCabe, and Lafferty, the Leafs have taken their shot. TBD is whether it was enough.
(Top photo: Joe Hrycych / NHLI via Getty Images)
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