Former Member of Leafs Player Development Staff Reveals Why Rasmus Sandin Was Traded

"Regardless of how much Kyle Dubas believes in Sandin's abilities (quite a bit, at least for as long as I was in the organization), the Leafs' GM probably saw the trade as an opportunity to improve his team.

In the very short term, Gustafsson is the type of offensive defenseman who can crush third-pair minutes in the same way Sandin had been doing."

"Statistically, Sandin's 5v5 performance is nearly above reproach. According to Natural Stat Trick, Sandin's controlled 54.2% of on-ice shots and 59.2% of on-ice goals in nearly 1700 minutes of ice time since 2020. Even in third-pair usage on a good team, these are elite outputs.

From a qualitative standpoint, Sandin moves the puck accurately, jumps into the play to create options and has a knack for using his skating and his defensive stick to kill plays up-ice.

Sandin's principal weakness, from an eye test perspective, is net-front defense."