Leafs acquire and extend Kirill Marchenko

[Guilt Trip]

I really like Knies, and I am sad to see him go. The Leafs are a better team than they were a couple hours ago.

Same

 

[dappleganger]

Do the Leafs only have 3-NHL LD now?

 

[Darryl]

It almost feels like more was going on behind the scenes with Knies. Not a trade demand but letting it be known he would not be opposed to moving on.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced today that the hockey club has acquired forwards Kirill Marchenko and Miles Wood, as well as goaltender Elvis Merzļikins, from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for defenceman Emil Andrae, forwards Matthew Knies and Steven Lorentz, as well as a second-round selection in the 2027 NHL Draft.

The Blue Jackets are retaining 18 percent of Merzļikins’ salary. The second-round selection was originally acquired by Toronto in a trade with Seattle on March 6, 2026, and will be the later selection of the Winnipeg or Columbus 2027 second-round picks

Knies for Marchenko I think should have been an even trade straight up basically. Lorentz for Woods is probably advantage Columbus. Woods has 1 additional year left on his deal and carries a $1.15mil higher cap hit. Woods has more of a track record with producing in the NHL though. Then we take on Elvis with some retention, which feels like us doing Columbus a favour more than anything. I wonder if what the long-term play is there... so far nothing has really suggested he'll be on LTIR all year so do the Leafs hope to flip him at some point?

That leaves Andrae and a 2nd rounder feeling like they're just in a void somewhere. Really don't get why those were included.

 

[lamajama]

It almost feels like more was going on behind the scenes with Knies. Not a trade demand but letting it be known he would not be opposed to moving on.

I wouldn't blame the guy...apparently pretty much moving on to the Habs last year and then all the rumours. At some point I think if it was me I'd be thinking F you after I signed a long term deal to stay.

 

[rjd]

I think this is an analytics deal. I think they looked at Knies and saw a player that had a hard time producing with anyone but Matthews, and could play on the right side. Marchenko can apparently play either left or right. That slots the lines better if they want to move McKenna up to the first line and drop Cowan in on the second. It gives them more flexibility, and more skill in the top six. However, they are losing a bit of a unicorn in Knies, which gives me pause. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, so I'm going to give it some time before I judge it.

Hey, at least they didn't give up an unprotected first sometime in the future....

 

[herman]

Knies for Marchenko I think should have been an even trade straight up basically. Lorentz for Woods is probably advantage Columbus. Woods has 1 additional year left on his deal and carries a $1.15mil higher cap hit. Woods has more of a track record with producing in the NHL though. Then we take on Elvis with some retention, which feels like us doing Columbus a favour more than anything. I wonder if what the long-term play is there... so far nothing has really suggested he'll be on LTIR all year so do the Leafs hope to flip him at some point?

That leaves Andrae and a 2nd rounder feeling like they're just in a void somewhere. Really don't get why those were included.

Leafs weren’t the only team in on the sweepstakes. Bruins seemed pretty close a week ago and Montreal was seemingly in on it as well.

Also Columbus didn’t really have to trade Marchenko at all

 

[Nik]

This has a lot of the hallmarks of recent Leafs deals I don't really love, the letting go of the grittier player, the sort of "draft, schmaft" attitude towards pretty valuable picks, getting more expensive for a guy who I don't know really moves the needle....

But I've been so detached from the team recently that when I read this I realized I don't actually know how Knies is pronounced so I can't pretend I feel very strongly about it.