The surprising Toronto Maple Leafs have been able alleviate much of the doom and gloom surrounding the organization in recent days, but could still use a handful of upgrades across a variety of positions on their roster. The struggling Arizona Coyotes, meanwhile, are reportedly so frustrated they're threatening to trade all of their players.
Could longtime Coyotes defenseman, Keith Yandle and Leafs youngster, Jake Gardiner, be the starting point for a trade between the two teams?
"While there are lots of rumors, one team the Coyotes could really make something work with is the Leafs," writes James Tanner of Hockeybuzz.com. "The Leafs need a top pairing dman and also would probably have interest in Hanzal."
Yandle, who has spent his entire 9-year NHL career with Arizona, is still only 28 years old. He's got three goals and sixteen assists on the season. As Tanner notes, he often drives possession offensively and is underrated in his own end of the ice.
He's also got a very manageable cap hit of $5.25 million.
Hanzal is a big center who averages around 30 points a season. He's got two years left on his deal with a $3.1 million cap hit.
"The Coyotes could help the Leafs by taking on some of their cap problems, and the Coyotes could replace Yandle with a future Yandle in Jake Gardiner and maybe a prospect like Nylander."
Gardiner, a young defenseman with immense physical gifts who plays with a frustratingly consistent inconsistency, has long been part of the trade rumor mill. But, much like Tyler Myers in Buffalo, the Leafs are most likely reluctant to trade the young talent for fear of what he could become elsewhere.
That's a generally poor reason not to make a deal, but it's a reason nonetheless, and hockey personnel people can be incredibly stubborn - better to let a top talent continue to perform adequately with your team than give up on them too soon and watch them blossom for another franchise.
But eventually the Leafs would be smarter to move Gardiner, and a player like Nazem Kadri, than continue to hope against hope that they'll become the players their physical gifts say they can be.
At 24, Gardiner still has the chance to become the shutdown defender the Leafs hoped for when they brought him over in trade from the Ducks - defensive players do often take longer to develop; Boston's Zdeno Chara, for instance, didn't turn into an elite player until well into the 7th season of his career - but with each season it looks less and less likely.
A similar principle applies to the Coyotes and Yandle.
At some point, the prudent move is getting what you can and risking the possibility of looking silly than continuing to sit on an asset that can improve your team's future prospects in several areas.
This article has been edited.
