Leafs Trade Rumours Escalating... Report Reveals Wild Move | Toronto Maple Leafs News

All signs point to this as Leafs trade rumors are starting to pick up once again. While it's obvious that John Tavares needs to make a trade for a defenseman, one name in particular has really started to pick up over the past few days. We're going to break down this report, discuss what it means going forward, and how all signs point to one move for the Leafs GM. But not only that, we have a ton of other updates, including some notes surrounding Austin Matthews, as he has not only been off to a flaming hot start, But there's some new updates surrounding him, his future in Toronto, and Gavin McKenna continues to absolutely shine in his rookie season thus far. But before we get into all of it, a very quick reminder to hit that subscribe button, you guys, and be sure to support us. We're going to start talking about the potential for a trade here. And something happened with Nikita Zadorov and the Leafs that has a lot of fans talking about it. So I want to start with this here. You can see this tweet. It talks about how Zadorov, Toronto, the Bruins, just for some context. So the Bruins recently benched Nikita Zadorov. And then his agent responded to a Leafs comparison. And now the speculation is growing. And here's the full context here. So Nikita Zadorov was healthy scratch. And someone tweeted at Dan Milstein, the agent of Nikita Zadorov and the agent of someone else we'll talk about in a minute, and said he wouldn't be treated like this in Toronto. And Dan said, no, he would not. So the agent's poking the bear a little bit here. And now this has sparked a ton of talks about how the Leafs should trade for Nikita Zadorov. And it seems at this point, I mean, there are some signs pointing to this being a potential destination. However, I would obviously warn everybody that this is obviously a rumor, but trading with the Bruins again is a little bit scary. And a big win last night, but at the same time, I don't think it's lost on anyone that the Leafs still need defensive help and still need to make a trade. So the timing of these rumors is very interesting, I think. And there's another player we're going to talk about, too, that has been heavily linked to the Toronto Maple Leafs that is also a defenseman. But on the Zadorov stuff, again, like you mentioned, it's Khromarchenko's agent. There's already a relationship. there with uh John Chayka right so um it's crazy that he tweeted this out actually that hey you know he wouldn't be disrespected and healthy scratch like this Toronto and then the agent comes out and says nope no he wouldn't have a pretty good relationship there so uh I think it's pretty interesting too that during the summer we were told that John Chayka would have horrible relationships with other general managers and agents and it just hasn't happened yet uh again we don't know like the specifics behind the scenes and with every single agent but um I thought that was pretty interesting now when talking about him and another player we're going to get to in a second that the Leafs are linked to wouldn't categorize these guys as the uh the difference makers that the Leafs on Saturday kind of put out there through the media through Elliot Friedman I would not categorize him as a difference maker that being said if they do move off of a let's say Oliver Ekman-Larsson having a Nikita Zadorov as a left shot uh on the left side on the third pairing I kind of like it like he's a big bruiser and I've been thinking recently you know watching the leafs you know a couple of their pieces are are older slower and they don't have like a big guy like they have Blankenburg and Stetcher right so having like a big guy there and again the makeup of the defense would have to make sense i'm not saying i don't want to move back in the direction of what Trilling and Bruh bay did not to have big guys just to be big but they don't have like a big bruiser back there that can log some minutes right and i feel like zadorov he's not the best defenseman but can do that but again he's not one of those guys you're spending premium assets on Yeah. And we had videos on it when we first started the channel a couple of years. Well, I guess we started a channel long enough, but a couple of years ago, we talked about Nikita Zadorov, how it almost seemed inevitable. And then with Tanev and neither of those happened until afterwards, of course, Tanev was signed in, I guess, the trade for his rights and signed him in free agency. He's an interesting player, right? Like he's not going to be a top pairing defenseman, but if you're talking about replacing him with OEL, like you said, I don't hate the idea. He's very, very physical. He leads the league essentially in hits per game. He's up there and block shots a game would it be a direct improvement over OEL this year OEL has been terrible so i don't know if it's a direct improvement in the sense of it's going to make this team significantly better but it will change the outlook of it a little bit and i think that's what this team needs so i think some swap with that and keep in mind the Bruins are trying to win now would that be a decent trade for them the least way we have to add something he does have a modified no trade clause though in the past he's been open to being traded to Toronto a five million dollar cap hit through 2030 so he's a free agent not until 2030 i don't hate it i really don't hate the move and overall i think it would be okay that being said they do need to i think fish bigger fish to fry here now the problem with that does become who do you trade and we'll have future videos on that there is a another name as well and you can see here it is Scott Mayfield so there's been rumblings about Mr Mayfield trying to look for a defenseman i believe toronto inquired about Mayfield last season i believe they stayed in touch he has a full no trade clause has been a scratch for six of the eight games um this one's more interesting i guess to me he's only played two games he's 34 years old i don't love this one that being said he's six foot five he's a massive defenseman and he's on a contract that's a basically the same as the Zadorov just a million and a half dollars cheaper i'd probably rather Nikita's Zadorov though i'm well aware i'm probably higher than uh on him than most people are what are your thoughts on on mayfield i think i kind of rather zadorov as well the thing with both of these guys and i just mentioned you know having a big bruiser back there right and i think a lot of people are going to like that idea you you mentioned something that i think was interesting that with zadorov you know he leads um he has a really good hits per game brandon carlo did too and then he came to the leafs and he really didn't i don't know if that's because he changed his play style and you know the history of concussions and stuff like that or uh maybe it's at the Leafs play with the puck a lot and that's something that they're trying to do now so maybe they should acquire defensemen that are better suited for that so i don't know if i love either of these options and by the way if you're getting either of these options you have to send probably dakota joshua the other way to make the money work and then outside of that you're giving up basically nothing because like these are not premium guys right that you're you're trading for they're guys that can maybe do something for you but uh and have obviously experience on the back end but this is not something that i jump out of my seat for and i'm like oh the leafs are much much better now right so uh they're not needle movers is my point so i don't know about that and mayfield's been scratched a lot on the islanders right so he could help shore up the defense i guess but he's definitely not a needle mover or anything like that so um i think they're interesting options i think there's definitely something behind you know some of these uh you know trade rumors and some of the reports from different uh outlets and stuff like that and i'm sure the leafs are busy trying to get something to happen i don't think they're going to make a panic move and i'm sure they're you know having discussions behind the scenes and stuff like that but uh to me nick neither of these guys are needle movers but um the team did play well last night there's a couple other things we got to get to but uh yeah definitely let us know how you feel about both of these options in the comments below and um you know milstein put it out there again on twitter and he's the agent of Karel Marchenko yeah and the leafs yesterday won three to one i know uh you were watching the game actually in the in the arena and we might have a post game tonight so stay tuned for that but hopefully take care of business obviously being lost in this fact they're playing tonight now again they're skating right now it seems that Marshall Refai is going to be factoring in for tonight for those interested but let's talk about Austin Matthews a little bit he's been really really good now special teams we'll talk about that in a second most insane thing I've ever seen but I want to talk about Matthews for a minute here he has had an unbelievable season another three points yesterday now putting his season total up to 16 points in 10 games you can see all the green he's in the hundredth percentile of basically every offensive stat and all of a sudden now his shot looks more lethal he looks confident skating you can see here where he's taking his shots from and this is a fun graphic we made up for you guys the atlantic race these points matter so much you can see that obviously they were second in the atlantic for a little bit there and it's obviously early but they were dead last before yesterday's game and then jump right up to fifth and this might seem crazy to talk about now losing those two you know games in overtime they should have won both of them would have put you at first top of boston right but at the same time if you don't scavenge a point those last two you're sitting dead last so they're only four points out of the first spot in the division and that's crazy given how bad realistically they've been this year and Austin Matthews coming back up and playing well so it's a big priority here I have no complaints about the forward group I'll say it time and time again man like they are great if they had a little bit better you know personnel on the defense core like I think this team would be in a really good spot right now um and I you know Bobrovsky could he be better absolutely but he played a really good game last night too but on Austin Matthews specifically because there's a lot of talk about Gavin McKenna and some other guys Neil Anders had a good start Austin Matthews is different he's different he's not even back he is just a different guy like he's really coming into his own as a captain like some of the quotes that are coming out about you know before the game yesterday i want us to play more hungry i want us to play with more emotion he just looks like a leader this year more so than ever and uh yeah i know he's wearing the the captain c for the last couple of years but he's just different man and he's uh you know back in terms of the goal scoring department he's on pace for 59 goals right he's literally on pace right now to score 60 goals again is anybody else realizing that how insane that is uh he's also the fastest player or like he's outpacing alex ovechkin at the same age at the same rate right he's the uh the highest goal scorer in in 700 games in history basically right he's outpacing alex ovechkin uh so it's absolutely insane what he's been able to put together and even this season 16 points in 10 games like you outlined he's third in the league i believe in overall scoring he's been everything for this team like i said he's willing his team to victory and that's what other top players in the team in the league do the Nathan MacKinnons the the Connor McDavids right and he's putting up amazing points right now too but he's also playing against like really garbage teams like once the season goes on we'll see how that progresses but um you know and not to say that he's not a great player obviously Connor McDavid's a great player but um you know Austin Matthews has been absolutely fantastic willing his team to victory and that's what you want to see from a captain i think a lot of people's opinions this season so far have changed on Austin Matthews i've never really looked at him differently like i still think he's an elite player a premier player in this league and a leader and definitely leads by example but i think a lot of people that were you know kind of turning the other way a little bit on him are coming back and going oh okay no this guy's for real again this season so he's shooting harder he's skating faster he's leading by example and he's putting up more assists he's putting up way more points which he never really did before he's more just a pure goal scorer so i'm super excited to see this and uh watching that goal in person like not too many guys can do that like a nice backhand pass from Krol Marchenko and he just like off balance tucks it under the bar like i don't know many guys that can do that so uh nice to see him back and the Leafs will be better for it yeah and not only that going forward there's a report that he wants to at this point wants to stay per David Pagnotta we'll probably have a full video on that maybe tomorrow or beyond but the vibes are high and if you take care of business today you're in a pretty good spot in the division let us know down below what your thoughts are on all this thank you guys for watching see you later