When big news rocks the NHL, the first question that springs to mind is always obvious: How does it impact the Toronto Maple Leafs?

We say it somewhat tongue in cheek — and in most cases, it’s a stretch to draw a connection — but the blockbuster three-way trade between Colorado, Carolina, and Chicago on Friday night has real ramifications for the Leafs, both in the short and long-term.

The competitive landscape in the East

I generally subscribe to the theory that whoever receives the best player in a trade wins the trade, and the Carolina Hurricanes acquired a superstar without giving one up.

At the time of writing, the Hurricanes were already slightly ahead of the Leafs in the standings with a .643-point percentage compared to the Leafs‘ .633.

While the Hurricanes have been a consistently elite regular season team for years now and already beat the Leafs once this season, the truth is, I still didn’t think too much of them previously. It was a roster that lacked star power, and it’s just about impossible to win in the NHL without a superstar. No team in recent memory has won without, at minimum, a top 5-10 player in the league. That was Carolina’s situation before tonight, and as a result, I just couldn’t take them seriously.

Well, the situation has changed.

The Hurricanes are a detailed and stingy defensive team, and now they will have one of the better center-winger combinations in the East when they presumably unite Sebastian Aho and Rantanen.

This move is noteworthy for a Leafs team that is currently in first place in their division and should very much fancy themselves as a contender.

In particular, it again highlights a weakness we have repeatedly discussed for weeks: the Leafs’ defense unit. After the Jake McCabe-Chris Tanev pairing, they have yet to find a credible top-four quality combination they can trot out on a nightly basis. It’s a problem against a Panthers team that has Aleksander Barkov-Sam Reinhart, followed by Sam Bennett-Matthew Tkachuk, and it’s a problem against a Carolina team that will likely have Aho-Rantanen on one line, and now at least one of Andrei Svechnikov or Seth Jarvis (or both) on a separate line.

In the Leafs’ one game against Carolina, the Hurricanes spread out their top three scorers across three lines, putting the Leafs’ defense pairings in a blender ahead of the Hurricanes scoring five goals plus an empty netter in a 6-3 Carolina victory.

Acquiring a third-line center to build three good lines will not cut it if the Leafs don’t possess two credible defense pairings. They would be banking on Joseph Woll and/or Anthony Stolarz standing on their heads. They need to figure out a quality second pairing.

Today’s blockbuster kicks off what should be an arms race in the East. Carolina has made a statement that they are playing for keeps, and it’s the type of move, should it come together as we assume it will for them, that elevates them into a category with the reigning champion Panthers as the two teams to beat in the conference.

The guess is that the Panthers will also add as they prepare to defend their title. Everyone else should take note over the next few months, and the Leafs are no exception. They have a good team with a chance. But they need to add.

The parallels to Mitch Marner’s contract situation

This brings us to the long-term impact on the Leafs, which also doubles as a short-term impact.

It’s no secret why the Avalanche traded a player of Rantanen’s calibre. He wanted upwards of $14 million based on his elite production and a rising cap limit. The Avalanche’s internal salary cap was maxed out at Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6 million AAV, and they had little appetite to pay a player on their team more than MacKinnon, their best player and a top three player in the world. It was fair for Rantanen to want that much money, and you can at least understand Colorado’s internal stance on the demand, even if you disagree with the ultimate decision.

There are natural parallels with the Mitch Marner situation. Marner is also a pending UFA, an elite producer, and is paired with a superstar center who should act as the high-water mark regarding the internal ceiling the Leafs should place on any other player’s salary.

The differences between the players are important to point out, too. Rantanen not only has a Stanley Cup but is an elite playoff producer with 101 playoff points in 81 playoff games. Marner’s 50 in 57 pales in comparison.

The other note here is an extremely important one: Rantanen had a nine-team no-trade clause compared to Marner’s full no-movement clause, making it much easier for the Avalanche to build a market and trade Rantanen. They fetched some good pieces in return, even though Rantanen hadn’t agreed to a contract extension with Carolina and had no real say in the trade. By contrast, Marner could simply state he’s not leaving — which he has more or less indicated since the summer — and it instantly changes the parameters of any discussion.

But the Leafs can at least try to apply lessons from this situation. Perhaps more than anything, it re-surfaces this simple question: Is Marner willing to take less money than Matthews?

Marner clearly likes playing for his hometown team, or else he could have easily demanded out last summer when the temperature was hot. Instead, he shut down the speculation and has returned with a strong 2024-25 regular season so far. But the Leafs shouldn’t pay Marner more than a player who plays a more important position than him and has been the best goal-scorer in the league since he entered it. Marner is an excellent player in his own right, but there is a clear hierarchy in place.

If Marner points to a rising cap as Rantanen did, without Rantanen’s goal and playoff production in his back pocket, then I’m not sure there’s much else to say. MacKinnon is earning a low enough number (negotiated a few years ago) that Rantanen can confidently argue he should make more than him. Matthews signed a much more recent deal and is one of the highest-paid players in the league at a number Marner really shouldn’t exceed ($13.25 million).

It seems pretty clear at this point that Marner likes playing for his hometown team. That’s a good place to start and work off of in a negotiation. Marner is an elite player, and there’s a path to a deal if Marner is willing to negotiate in good faith and sign under Matthews’ number.

What Colorado did was difficult and, truthfully, admirable, but I think it’s clear it made them a worse team in the short term. For a Leafs team that’s in first place in the Atlantic and hasn’t won a thing in this era, I’m not sure they should be happy to make themselves worse to prove a point.

In theory, a happy medium should be achieved, but the Leafs may not have much choice if they can’t agree to the most basic principle of Matthews making the most on the team.

Only Marner and Leafs management can figure that part out. This Rantanen deal should serve as a kick in the butt to say, “We don’t want it to get to this point.” But the clock is ticking, and eventually, a shoe will have to drop. Everyone has said all the right things on both sides of the negotiation over the past year, but we’re inching closer to the time for action.