In a potentially franchise-altering trade that may define his legacy, Kyle Dubas swung for the fences and the Toronto Maple Leafs are materially better on Saturday morning with this year’s playoffs carrying terminal implications for several parties involved.
Dubas acquired Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari from the St. Louis Blues, in exchange for 2023 first and third-round picks, a 2024 second-round pick, along with Mikhail Abramov and Adam Gaudette. Minnesota will receive a 2025 fourth-round pick, while also sending forward prospect Josh Pillar to Toronto.
During his press conference coming out of the All-Star break, Dubas slyly indicated that the Maple Leafs wouldn’t mortgage their future to chase a championship, hinting that Toronto would avoid going after one of the biggest names on the market.
”In regards to rentals, I can’t see that happening,” Dubas said. “But with regards to other options, I don’t think you say no off the hop to anything. But those are very important pieces to us.”
You have to appreciate the duplicity to some degree. Dubas doesn’t owe the media unrelenting honesty at all times and he swung a massive trade that could cement his future with the Maple Leafs. He did extremely well to get the Blues to retain 50 percent of O’Reilly’s salary, while the Wild took on 25 percent of his $7.5 million cap hit. It was a clever piece of business that allows Toronto to add merely $3.125 million in cap space and it satisfies all ends of the viewing spectrum, while rendering this Maple Leafs team as the most potent and flexible unit of the Auston Matthews-Mitch Marner era.
“I would’ve dealt the picks instead of the prospects, mainly because we know our prospects,” Dubas said Saturday.
The players, meanwhile, should get a boost from this big acquisition as they head into the final stretch of the season.
“It sends a strong message and gets the group energized,” Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said Saturday morning via David Alter of Rink Wide: Toronto.
Toronto now boasts tremendous lineup flexibility among its forward corps — this very trait was one of Tampa Bay’s defining qualities during its back-to-back Cup wins — and will push O’Reilly down as a third-line centre, or he could be used as a top-six wing. O’Reilly’s counting stats aren’t going to blow anyone away, with 12 goals and 19 points, but he still carries a reputation as one of the NHL’s preeminent defensive forwards, while winning 51 percent of his faceoffs. St. Louis controlled just over 50 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5 when O’Reilly was on the ice, but he’s either going to play against inferior opponents as a centre, or turbo-charge one of Toronto’s two nominal scoring lines as a winger.
“The centre depth is important. You look at the depth at centre ice in our division, the foundation of depth is in the centre of the ice. To have those options…We can try different things and have a little extra time here now,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said.
O’Reilly and Acciari increase the depth of a hyper-competitive race for a place in the lineup among the forward corps and concerns about Toronto’s bottom six not producing enough offence are at least temporarily alleviated. Toronto isn’t getting the 2019 playoff MVP version of O’Reilly, but it doesn’t need that version of him.
Acciari is an underlooked component of this trade, but he slots in nicely for the Maple Leafs’ bottom six. He’s posted 10 goals and 18 points in 54 games, he blocks shots, he ranks eighth in the league with 166 hits at 5-on-5, and he can play either centre or wing. It immediately bumps Wayne Simmonds and Pontus Holmberg out of the lineup, and it’s likely he’ll cut into Zach Aston-Reese’s minutes. This is undoubtedly a more well-rounded group with a higher ceiling with O’Reilly and Acciari aboard.
O’Reilly’s playoff pedigree is self-evident, but there are reasonable concerns: his 2.78 expected goals against per 60 is about league-average among players with 400 minutes played or greater at 5-on-5. He is just coming off a major foot injury. If you’re among the critics who wanted the Maple Leafs to get tougher or another two-way forward in the playoffs, that end of the bargain is satisfied. Toronto gets another former captain in the room, so there’s certainly no absence of accountability or leadership. There are no more excuses for this group.
Dubas may not have been lying about acquiring rentals, either. O’Reilly’s contract is slated to expire at the end of the year, but who says the Maple Leafs can’t retain him? He’s 32 years old and while he’s a stellar two-way force, he is admittedly facing some age-related decline. Not only that, but would O’Reilly be amenable to a hometown discount in the same vein as Mark Giordano? Surely, we may find out in the coming days as we get to know O’Reilly better.
This Maple Leafs team is full of graduates from the Greater Toronto Hockey League, with dreams of winning the first Cup this city has seen since 1967. Those are problems for another day and we’ll need to do some more reporting, but I get the sense that O’Reilly may be another member of this team’s long-term core.
If you want to laugh at the idea of the Maple Leafs becoming arguably the strongest Cup contender in the league, go ahead, that’s part of the gambit. If the Maple Leafs colossally flame out of the opening round once again, Dubas is gone. He may be the first of many dominoes to follow. You can build one of the league’s premier teams in the regular season, time and again, you can look at reason and probabilities and realize the Maple Leafs may have been prone to some misfortune in consecutive Game 7 losses to the Bruins, or to an untimely offensive burst from Tampa Bay’s Nick Paul last year. But there’s only a finite amount of patience available in Toronto. Winning cures everything.
Invoking the Lightning is intentional. They’re going to be the Maple Leafs’ playoff opponent, barring disaster, or a complete and unsuspected collapse from the Bruins, which just isn’t in the cards. Tampa Bay became the class of the Eastern Conference not only because of its resounding star power and lineup flexibility, but general manager Julien BriseBois inherently realizes that not all first-round picks are created equal and went all-in, trading a first for Blake Coleman in 2020, and two firsts and roster players for Brandon Hagel in 2021. It worked out as well as possible both times.
It’s nice to discuss prospects and the salary cap and the machinations of the league, but they’re never as important as the immediate future. If Dubas has emulated BriseBois’s principles, it may be the final step in getting the Maple Leafs over the hump.
And now the arms race has begun. New York made its move for Vladimir Tarasenko, Toronto has pushed its chips in for O’Reilly and Acciari, while New Jersey, Boston and Carolina could swing for Timo Meier and Erik Karlsson. It is going to be a star-studded battle to the death in the East, but this is the best roster of the Matthews-Marner era. There are no excuses left for Dubas, but he’s done everything he could to turn this team into a perennial contender. No one can fault him for a lack of effort.
“It’s not about me and my status. It’s about what’s best for the team, and that’s what we’ll continue to look at,” Dubas said earlier this month.
Toronto has gone all-in with O’Reilly aboard, it now boasts the deepest centre group in the league and there are no obvious flaws to glare at. There are some factions of the fan base who’ll need their trust restored that may only come with a first-round victory. The only thing that could restrain anyone from embracing this team is the immediate playoff history. Famous last words but burn the history books, this is a Maple Leafs team that can win it all. The future — for Dubas, and the organization at-large — is riding on it.
