Frank Corrado thinks the Leafs can learn a lot From Montreal’s rebuild: Leafs Morning Take
The best part about the NHL trade deadline every year is hearing about the deals that didn’t happen.
This year is no different.
On Monday afternoon, Nick Kypreos, co-host of Kyper & Bourne, floated the idea that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens discussed a potential Matthew Knies trade prior to Friday’s deadline. On so many levels, that’s pretty wild.
As fate would have it, those two storied Original Six rivals meet Tuesday night for the fourth and final time this season.
For us, even the notion of trading Knies, who’s just 22, wouldn’t make much sense. Unless Montreal was willing to severely overpay, there’s no way the Leafs should revisit that conversation in the offseason. On top of that, trading with a divisional rival is always a slippery slope—just look at the Brandon Carlo deal.
At any rate, as mentioned, Toronto’s in Montreal to tangle with the Habs. Through three outings, they’re 1-1-1 against them. The tank’s officially on. The Leafs have dropped seven in a row. In fact, they haven’t won a game since February 3rd. Auston Matthews is goalless in 11 straight games. He hasn’t scored since January 27th. Meantime, Matias Maccelli’s riding a five game point streak. Surprise, surprise, Craig Berube’s going with new lines to start this one. Matthews and Nylander were split up, Domi’s back on the top line, and Cowan-Quillian-Robertson will comprise the third line. Whatever. By the way, it sounds like Bo Groulx, who was called up Tuesday morning, will make his Maple Leafs debut in this one. Groulx, 26, has 27 goals and 50 points for the Marlies this season.
Meantime, former Maple Leaf and current TSN hockey analyst Frankie Corrado then joined us. Firstly, he weighed in on the Knies to Montreal trade buzz. Corrado, who does a lot of colour analyst work for Habs games, thinks Knies is exactly the type of player that Montreal would currently covet. On top of that, from a Toronto perspective, he thinks Montreal would be an attractive match for a trade because of all the picks and prospects that they currently possess. At any rate, Corrado also hit on Toronto’s deadline, the plan moving forward, and what needs to change for the Maple Leafs to catapult themselves back into playoff contention next season. His insight was very strong. He painted a picture of what the organization could be thinking right now. Furthermore, he shed some perspective from his time as a Leaf in 15-16, the year the team tanked to get the first overall pick (Auston Mattthews). Lastly, Corrado dished on what the Leafs can learn from Montreal, who was able to retool rather quickly.
Coming up on the Wednesday edition of Leafs Morning Take, we’ll recap Leafs/Habs plus look ahead to the rest of the week for the Maple Leafs.