Although the 2023 playoffs ultimately ended in disappointment for the Leafs, two players who made a huge impact on the team that finally made it past the first round were Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Accciari.
Both were the main pieces acquired in a massive trade that included several futures contracts destined for the Blues that included their 2023 first-round pick. Each provided an element of their games that was sorely lacking prior to their arrival. And with both players on expired contracts and unsigned at the time of writing, they present the organization with the dilemma of whether or not to keep them.
The Leafs had to include a third team in the Wild to help make the salary work because a 50% retention just wouldn’t be enough since no one on the main roster was included in the trade. However, there was a player on the active list who was almost included in the deal that would have eliminated the need for the third team: Alex Kerfoot.
Joshua Cloak mentioned it in his article about the standing of things with the Leafs’ suspended free agents Kerfoot would have been part of the return package in the O’Reilly-Acciari deal but Dupas wanted to preserve his lead and therefore needed to field the Wild at the cost of a 2025 fourth-round pick.
It repeats a report Eliot Friedman made during it An episode of 32 Ideas: The Podcast was released March 4 Where he said the following:
Toronto made that deal with St. Louis via Minnesota to keep Kerfoot. Which is why I wasn’t surprised he didn’t trade Kerfoot. Toronto could have done this deal with St. Louis themselves, but they required Minnesota to keep an additional 25% over O’Reilly and paid the option amount to keep Kerfoot.
She was there too rumors about that time Kerfoot could have been dealt to the Canucks after the Leafs acquired Jake McCabe and Sam Laverty, but the move ultimately didn’t materialize either. Kerfoot made it past the deadline and thus spent the rest of the season primarily in sixth place Toronto, scoring seven points in their last 27 games before hitting two goals in the playoffs including the Game 4 OT winner.
Whether or not you agree with Dubas’ decision to stick with Kerfoot until the 2023 trade deadline, the implications his trade could have on the lineup and some future events are pretty impressive.
Had he been sent to St. Louis for a dump, the Leafs likely would have called up a Marlies player or two to fill the void left behind. My best guess is that they would have been Pontus Holmberg and Bobby McMahon, both of whom impressed during his previous stints with the team during the regular season. Given that McMann will later Re-exacerbation of the knee injury In the AHL a few weeks past the deadline, he was probably healthy all the way through and might have been able to get in when Matthew Kniss suffered a concussion in Game 2 vs the Panthers.
By no means would the younger options have been guaranteed to be better than Kerfoot’s seven points to close out the regular season, but perhaps having the younger options could have resulted in a different outcome as the playoffs proceeded. It would also have been of great help in the development of players like Holmberg and McMann who are placed in high pressure situations. Kerfoot’s shipping might also have prevented the Leafs from getting into a rough spot in the last week of the regular season after hiring Knies.
As mentioned earlier, Kerfoot was the man to score the overtime goal in Game 4 against the Lightnin’, which was an exclamation mark for their dramatic 4-1 victory. I can understand why some think giving up a fourth-round pick was worth it. Logic will tell you that when you’re trying to win now, you have to give up future assets like draft picks for the sure thing. It is likely that Dupas thought that this future player would not be selected for another two years and that it would take at least five seasons after that to see if giving up selection was the right move, and so was comfortable with including a third team in the deal. .
With Kerfoot’s versatility to move up and down the lineup, his two-way play, and it being a season away from a career year, I can understand why Dubas chose to maintain his lead rather than be included in the O’Reilly-Acciari trade. The Leafs got stronger once the deal was done, and the loss of Kerfoot had an impact on the team’s overall play. The rationale for GMs in winning mode now is that you’re trying to make a deal that allows you to improve the team and not take anyone off the roster as a result.
Having said that, sending Kerfoot to the Midwest could also have had a lot of benefits for the Leafs. Hitting his $3.5 million cap off the books would save an asset for future use, younger players would have a path to join the roster and continue their development, and signing Knies wasn’t as complicated as it wound up being. Obviously, a fourth-round pick wouldn’t score the overtime winner in Game 4, but it also doesn’t make sense to throw away a draft pick this way when the player you’re protecting is likely going to free agency anyway.
Regardless, Kerfoot ended up staying on the roster through the end of the regular season and helped the Leafs beat their Devils in the first round with an OT winner. Had the comeback package for one of the biggest signings of this era looked a little different, who knows how much it would have changed when Mark Giordano fired a point on the power play in Game 4.
stats from Hockey-Reference.com And The natural stats trick.