13 Musings: Leafs trade haul helps next season, too. And what’s up with the Lightning?

Kyle Dubas will tell anyone who’ll listen that he treated this year’s trade deadline like any other, as in doing what’s best for the Maple Leafs and not worrying about his own contract status.

But six players? A third of the skating lineup?

When you’ve got nothing to lose, you go all in, right?

That’s what the Leafs general manager did. Credit to him. He saw what he lacked. He traded what he could afford. He’s got a deeper, stronger team that’s harder to play against as a result. At least that’s the theory.

Certainly it’s on the players to prove it.

Then it’s on the fans — with ownership the biggest fans possible — to be judge, jury and (if it comes to that) executioner.

So, what constitutes success? Is the bar so low that it’s winning one playoff round? Gotta figure the bar is higher than that. Making the conference final has to be the job-saving bar, with a Stanley Cup appearance reason for a nice raise.

To his credit, Dubas also has the team on surer footing for next season, where it could have somewhere along the lines of $17 million in salary-cap space. Getting Sam Lafferty ($1.15 million cap hit) and Jake McCabe ($2 million) offered stability and cost certainty, likely replacing David Kämpf and Justin Holl payroll-wise.

And that first-round pick recouped for Rasmus Sandin offers something to trade at the draft. (If we know Dubas, it will be a trade down for a high second, a third and something next year.)

So yeah, Dubas did do some work for the team’s future.

If you have a question, email me at askkevinmcgran@gmail.com and I’ll answer it in the next Mailbag. Now to the 13 Musings.

1. The Leafs have had their fair share of injuries, don’t you think? With Ryan O’Reilly (broken finger) on long-term injured reserve and John Tavares out with some mystery ailment, it reeks of Nick Foligno in 2021 again. Or Owen Nolan. Or Phil Housley.

2. The Leafs have 10 of their remaining 19 games against teams not currently in the playoffs. Can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

3. Who had Michael Bunting/Pontus Holmberg/Alex Steeves as a line at any point other than training camp?

4. Boston and Toronto look like they’re in for a head-on collision in the playoffs. That’s the Boston Pride and Toronto Six, easily the cream of the crop in the PHF.

5. Do people still think the NHL needs to do something to encourage more trades to create buzz?

6. Sandin had three assists in his debut with the Capitals. Pierre Engvall is playing on the Islanders’ top line. Got a feeling folks will be keeping tabs on their progress for a while.

7. Come on, when Florida and Calgary made their big trades and moves last summer, who among us suspected they would both be on the outside looking in at a playoff spot at this point of the season?

8. The Lightning benched their top players — Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov — and are losing. Is this it for them? The end? Or are they just lying in the weeds, waiting for the post-season to play like they care again?

9. The Nashville Predators were sellers at the deadline but were heating up, the best bet to put pressure on the struggling Winnipeg Jets.

10. The Senators’ five-game win streak is their longest in six years. They could make a run at the playoffs.

11. That said, it wasn’t the worst idea in the world for the Arizona Coyotes to wait to trade Jakob Chychrun. Though they got less than what it was believed they wanted, they did get the best first overall pick on offer. Ottawa will likely be in top 16. Other teams in the bidding would have offered first-round picks later in the draft. The later the pick, the less likely you’re going to get an impact player.

12. Best wishes to ex-Leaf Mike Stothers, an assistant coach in Anaheim, in his battle against Stage 3 melanoma of the lymph node. Stothers coached Mark Giordano and Wayne Simmonds in Owen Sound, and Morgan Rielly in Moose Jaw.

13. The AHL trade deadline is Friday at 3 p.m. The Marlies look loaded for a deep run.

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