Toronto Maple Leafs close out trade deadline by adding Ben Hutton to their blue line depth, shipping Alex Barabanov to San Jose

The Toronto Maple Leafs have shored up their blue line depth right at the final bell on trade deadline day, acquiring pending-UFA left-shot defenseman Ben Hutton from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick in 2022.

The 28-year-old Brockville, Ontario native was an all-situations top-four defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks as recently as 2018-19, averaging 22:21 a night, including two minutes a night on both sides of special teams, and producing in the 20-25 point range. After walking as an unrestricted free agent in the offseason of 2019 (the Leafs showed some interest in him at that time), Hutton has settled more in the 18-minute range with some penalty-killing time in his subsequent stops in LA and Anaheim.

“Happy go lucky guy who never has a bad day. He is a big guy. He is probably the defense comparison to Sam Bennett. He is not a top-four guy. He maybe had his time and his chance years ago in Vancouver, but now he is a bottom 2-3 guy; a 6/7 in Toronto for sure. He certainly helps a ton if anybody goes down.”

– Former Canuck Kevin Bieksa on Ben Hutton

A mobile and a competent puck mover with good size (6’2, 207 pounds), Hutton is an NHL-calibre bottom-pairing defenseman, and the Leafs needed one more of those ahead of their playoff run. Their previous #7, Rasmus Sandin, has played a total of one NHL game and one AHL game this season and is just getting back into the swing of things after an injury.  The team had previously moved KHL import Mikko Lehtonen along to a new opportunity in Columbus earlier this season.

Between Sandin, Hutton, and Dermott, the Leafs should have three quality #6 options on the left side, giving them eight NHL defensemen they can be confident about taking a regular shift, with Timothy Liljegren and Martin Marincin filling out their top 10 as emergency options if a collection of injuries were to strike.

Hutton is not a clearly better player than either right now, but he has done heavier lifting on the penalty kill than both Sandin and Dermott and he has logged longer stretches of top-four NHL experience (including alongside Drew Doughty for a spell in 2019-20). He should provide a good depth option and injury cover for that reason. Any team with serious designs on a deep run in the postseason needs to have a few extra defensemen lying around who could take a regular shift in most top sixes around the league, and Hutton matches that description.

The Leafs are now fully loaded up for a real Cup run, having shored up four positions before the deadline — playoff center help (Riley Nash), top-nine winger help (Nick Foligno), goaltending depth (David Rittich), and defensive depth (Ben Hutton) — at the price of their first-round pick in 2021, two fourth-round picks (2021 and 2022), a third-round pick in 2022, a fifth-round pick in 2022, and a conditional seventh-round pick in 2022. All four of the Leafs‘ deadline additions are pending UFAs.

A few weeks ago the Leafs needs were fairly clear: One impact forward, a depth forward, a depth dman and goalie insurance. Can quibble on who they elected to acquire but kudos for figuring out a way to address every position. Think Galchenyuk's play factored into FWD needs too.

— Anthony Petrielli (@APetrielli) April 12, 2021

That leaves the Leafs with just three picks in each of the next two drafts, which is a reflection of the fact that this is a justifiable go-for-it year and it behooved Kyle Dubas to give his team every opportunity to challenge for a Cup. Notably, remaining with the organization amid all of the trade activity are all of the team’s top prospects — Rodion Amirov, Nick Robertson, Sandin, Topi Niemela, Liljegren, Fillip Hallander, Nick Abruzzese — and every current NHL roster player aside from Alex Barbanov, who was moved today in search of a new opportunity.

Barabanov also traded as the clock struck 3 p.m. in a deal with San Jose that returned 27-year-old Finnish forward Antti Suomela, who provides center depth on the Marlies and has 51 games of NHL experience with the Sharks. With Foligno and Nash added to the fold, Barabanov’s spot in the lineup would’ve been even further out of reach once the Leafs’ full forward complement is healthy, through quarantine, and available to Sheldon Keefe.

While he played a handful of games in late February/early March where he was a bit of a sparkplug and created a few offensive opportunities, Barabanov had struggled to make anything approaching a consistent impact while going in and out of the lineup, and he was nothing more than a Marlies depth option with the team’s new additions up front (13 NHL appearances, one assist, 8:37/game). Similar to Mikko Lehtonen, this was a nothing ventured, nothing gained situation, and Dubas did right by his former signing out of the KHL.

Ben Hutton Statistics