The Toronto Maple Leafs were able to improve their roster at the NHL Trade Deadline this year and did so without trading any valuable assets. Sure, the team had to trade roster players like Pierre Engvall and Rasmus Sandin, but the prospects and draft picks they traded weren’t difference-makers to team success.
The Leafs traded away two first-round picks, Mikhail Abramov, Adam Gaudette, Joey Anderson, Dryden Hunt and Pavel Gogolev. All of those players and even draft picks are not NHL-ready, nor may ever be. The first-round picks are always worrisome because those have the most unknown, but Toronto acquired a first-round pick in the Sandin trade to offset the worry that they’d miss out on a high prospect they like at this year’s NHL Entry Draft.