Elliotte Friedman Links Conn Smythe Winner and Stanley Cup Champion to Maple Leafs

With the 2024-25 season over for the Maple Leafs, all focus now shifts from a playoff run to an offseason change.

Whether or not faces like Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly and Max Domi find themselves on the roster is up for debate, but right now everything should be on the table.

There needs to be something different after so many years ofd spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.

Which is why it isn't going to be surprising to hear a whole host of names that are going to come up who could help the Maple Leafs next season.

Do they try and snag a potential Florida free agent like Brad Marchand or Sam Bennett? Or do they replace Marner with a name like Brock Boeser?

According to NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman, the team should definitely look towards acquiring a forward with a winning pedigree who desperately needs a change of scenery; and he could be a huge help.

Leave it to Toronto to be linked to a forward or player from the Predators, as they have pretty much all season with Ryan O'Reilly, but Marchessault does offer the Maple Leafs a lot of what they need.

Bringing him into the lineup would certainly add a certain pedigree to the team, but there are certainly some negatives that come along with him.

Let's start with the positives. He's won a Stanley Cup, he's a Conn Smythe Winner, and has proven multiple times he can pull through in the playoffs.

Twice with Vegas he eclipsed the 20-point mark in the postseason, with 25 points in Vegas' Cup winning season (and a league high 13 goals).

He's a veteran with a consistent scoring record, and can even break out for a 40-goal season as we saw last year. While he did regress a bit this year, that's due in part to a very terrible season altogether for Nashville.

He also throws hits, plays physical, and would thrive in a dump and chase system that Craig Berube likes to employ.

However, there is some baggage.

Marchessault is 34 years old, coming off a bad season (while not his fault completely, is still worrying), and has a $5.5M cap hit for the next four years.

That would see him at 38 in his final year, and with Toronto already locking up their defensive core until the mid-late thirties; can they afford another expensive older player?

The only players considered under the youth movement on the NHL roster are Nick Robertson (a free agent), Pontus Holmberg, and Matthew Knies (a free agent).

While the team is going to more than likely re-sign Knies to a long-term deal, the team isn't getting any younger, and unless they shift towards their prospects for next year things aren't going to change much age wise.

He's also a tad injury prone, and what we've seen this season in Toronto could be a death sentence; so does the team want to risk taking on a huge deal only for him to get hurt and lose half of the season?

It's all about the yin and yang with the hockey world, and there's always going to be some negatives that follow the positives.

But for the Maple Leafs, Jonathan Marchessault makes sense on paper, but if they make that a reality: How much better is the team off really?