What the Maple Leafs get in towering rental defenceman Joel Edmundson
While the buyers in the Western Conference have been aggressively buying up talent the past two days, on Thursday the Toronto Maple Leafs got active on the trade market in a somewhat quieter way.
TORONTO — Brad Treliving has a type.
The Toronto Maple Leafs GM likes them big, nasty and — for the 2024 trade deadline, at least — super cheap.
Once again, the playoff-bound Leafs have rented a useful depth defenceman from the crumbling powerhouse that is the Washington Capitals.
But unlike puck-mover Erik Gustafsson in 2023, Joel Edmundson is six feet, five inches of snarl and snot, grit and gumption. Two hundred twenty-one pounds of boxouts and crosschecks and steel shins.
With Treliving letting the class’s marquee rentals pass by and holding tight to his three most valuable trade chips (his 2024 first-round draft pick plus prized prospects Fraser Minten and Easton Cowan), he and expert capologist Brandon Pridham have done a fine job of acquiring inexpensive depth.
The Maple Leafs may now well lead the league in bona fide third-pairing D-men.
Much like last week’s low-risk blueline booster, Ilya Lyubushkin, Edmundson arrives with a chip on his shoulder and cap hit twice chopped.
The Montreal Canadiens are already eating half of the 30-year-old’s total cap of hit of $3.5 million, a condition of his original trade to Washington.
So, in acquiring a 2024 third-round pick (the Islanders’, via last year’s Pierre Engvall dump) and 2025 fifth-round pick (Chicago’s, via the Jake McCabe–Sam Lafferty deal) from Toronto, Washington agreed to take on half of Edmundson’s remaining paycheques.
When the dust settles, Edmundson will drain a meagre $875,000 off the Maple Leafs’ cap.
In other words, he and Lyubushkin combined are less of a drain on Pridham’s spreadsheet than Jake McCabe, another bargain. The three of them together should make Toronto’s crease a less soft and purposeless place.
“You can never have too many defencemen,” Treliving said before Thursday’s trade. “You just can’t, if you want to get to where you want to get to.”
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The cost, of course, is more middling picks out the door.
As things stand, the Leafs’ amateur scouts can take Rounds 2, 3 and 6 off this June and Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 off in ’25.
Such is the cap-world cycle of one franchise pitching for a championship and another in triage, restocking after securing one. (The Capitals now hold 25 picks over the next three drafts: eight picks in 2024, nine picks in 2025 and eight picks in 2026.)
To understand why the Leafs chose Edmundson, affordability aside, look no further than this comment from coach Sheldon Keefe following Monday’s 4-1 loss at home to the Boston Bruins: “They defended their net extremely well. Better than us in that area, for sure.”
Edmundson is a pure net defender. He’ll lay the lumber, throw the shoulder and jam a big limb into a shooting lane.
He will start the majority of his shifts in the defensive zone, hang back when his partner feels the urge to pinch, and he’ll kill a penalty. He might take one, too, though (457 PIMs in 521 games).
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What he won’t do is steal more pucks than he surrenders (94-353 is his career takeaway-giveaway count), generate much offence (one goal, six points over his 44 games with Wash), or win all the footraces.
Treliving understands that.
Steady Eddie was recruited for his playoff experience (a ring in 2019 with St. Louis, plus a final trip with Montreal in 2021), and his determination and intimidation to keep pucks and people away from the most dangerous scoring area.
Further, the recent head injury to Mark Giordano, 10 years Edmundson’s senior, was a frightening reminder of how close the Leafs are to leaning on a Max Lajoie or a Marshall Rifai in a playoff series.
To juggle roster space, the Leafs shifted Conor Timmins (mono) from IR to LTIR and placed depth D-man William Lagesson on waivers.
Edmundson isn’t spectacular, but he’s safe and solid and the price was right.
Because he’s a lefty with experience patrolling the right side, Keefe will have 20 games to tinker with his pairings and unlock the optimal setup for the post-season.
That’s when Toronto will likely face off against the Bruins or Panthers, two fierce rivals who make it painful to drive the paint.
Well, with a big butcher Edmundson out there wielding his hockey stick like a crowbar, getting to the Maple Leafs’ crease just got harder.
The trade deadline buzzer sounds at 3 p.m. ET Friday, so there is still time for Treliving to add more.
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