The Toronto Maple Leafs are off to a dreadful begin to the 2025-26 NHL season, with a 9-10-3 record. They’re last within the Eastern Conference and is not going to have their first-round pick in June’s draft if it lands outside the highest five. That’s since the Maple Leafs traded for Brandon Carlo, who struggled and is now injured, on the 2025 NHL trade deadline. In line with Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos, Carlo could possibly be on the move again.
“The Leafs did explore trading Carlo last off-season, but couldn’t get to the fitting deal. There’s a powerful suggestion Toronto and Buffalo were in talks over having Carlo involved in a JJ Peterka trade after which moving towards a Carlo-for-Bowen Byram form of trade over the summer,” Kypreos reported.
He continued, “Carlo still has some attraction to other teams. He can log big minutes, is a right shot, still relatively young at 28 years old, and Boston is eating $615,000 of his salary, so he’ll count for just $3.485 million — and possibly less if the Leafs retain a few of that. Carlo has one other season left on his contract, so an acquiring team would get him for 2 playoff drives. He’ll get a number of respect within the trade market.”
The Maple Leafs traded their 2025 first-round pick and forward prospect Fraser Minten for Carlo last yr. That pick could also be in the highest ten, and Minten has been an on a regular basis player for Boston. Giving up Carlo can be an enormous failure of admission from Brad Treliving. That’s something NHL GMs are usually not quick to do.
The Bruins have been surprisingly solid to start out the season despite having bottom-tier expectations. That makes the trade much more painful for the Maple Leafs. They’re tumbling toward missing the playoffs for the primary time since 2016. Can a Carlo trade spark this team to a playoff run? Or will this sale be the start of a fireplace sale in Toronto?