Evaluation season for the Maple Leafs ahead of trade deadline

As the trade deadline approaches in a crunch season for the Maple Leafs, Toronto's front office must evaluate the roster and decide who needs to stay for the playoff push and who is either surplus to requirements or negatively impacting the team's performance.

Video Transcript

- With the Leafs going from playing one game every five days to playing every other day, they're really getting into an evaluation point of the season where you have to ask yourself, all right, who's going to stay, and who's going to go when it comes to the trade deadline?

There are a lot of rumors and buzz around that the Leafs might be interested in Calvin de Haan and John Klingberg and Josh Manson of the Anaheim Ducks. But they don't necessarily have the cap space to be making some those type of moves. So you have to ask yourself, who are they going to ship out for cap space?

Is it going to be Justin Hall, who has looked better, who hasn't been a solid contributing factor on the blue line? Is it going to be Travis Dermott? He's kind of in the same category is it going to be Nick Ritchie, who the Leafs signed for two years at $2.5 million per, which in hindsight is a pretty bad idea? Is it going to be him? Is it going to be Pierre Engvall, who looked great on the fourth line, but again, makes over $1 million?

So I think the Leafs are getting to that point where they really need to start asking those questions. Who are the players that we desperately need to have in the lineup for that long-term success, and who are those players that can be easily be replaced? I think the Leafs do have a lot of names within the system who can be replaced.

But I think this next stretch, especially in February where they're playing so often, where they can really get those answers and see-- hey, once the playoffs start in April, who's going to be on that opening roster? And who's going to contribute positively? And if there's going to be a negative impact, then maybe they'll be the first ones to go.