Should the Toronto Maple Leafs Trade Down at the 2024 NHL Entry Draft?
The 2024 NHL Draft is only a few weeks away and as of right now the Toronto Maple Leafs are without a pick in rounds two, three, and six.
As well, they do not have any picks in the first four rounds of next years draft. The following year, the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t have a second, fourth, or sixth either.
This means that the Leafs are down ten picks in the next three drafts.
This is not good, but it’s a fact of life for a team that has spent nearly a decade trying to win a Stanley Cup and being near the top of the league.
Luckily, this is slightly mitigated by having two extra fifths and an extra seventh this year. Depending on who the Leafs draft, they can help to re-stock their prospect cupboards.
Even still, this is a lot of draft capital to be missing out on and given they only made three selections last year, the future outlook for the Leafs’ prospect pool is about as dry as the Sahara desert. After this next crop of prospects, things look bleak.
Luckily, there are ways this can be helped but only one that involves actual draft picks, which is through trades.
One of the most common ways to do this is through “trading down” in the draft. This is usually done when a team trades a draft pick to a team in return for multiple later picks.
The thought process behind this is that the team trading down is able to increase their chances of drafting a future NHL player by giving them more kicks at the can.
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