Last night Darren Dreger stated that the Toronto Maple Leafs have interest in bringing Brayden Schenn into the organization. This should come as no surprise to anybody in Leafs Nation. For starters, Craig Berube was still head coach of the St. Louis Blues when Schenn was named their captain to start the 2023-24 season. Berube lasted just a few months with Schenn as captain, but he knows the player well, as Brayden was part of the team for Berube’s entire coaching tenure in St. Louis. Secondly, it’s been stated by Treliving himself that he’d like to add a two-way centre with term left on his contract and Brayden has 3 years left on his deal, with a caphit of $6.5M per season and is said to be capable defensively. He holds a full NTC for the rest of this season, before it becomes a partial NTC this summer, so any move would need his blessing. The assumption here would be that he would waive his trade protection to join his former bench boss in Toronto.
One more interesting nugget is the rumour that some teams are interested in reuniting the Schenn brothers. They last played together in Philadelphia in 2015-16 and, according to Luke, would cherish the opportunity to play together once again. We know that Luke worked very well with Morgan Rielly and that he’d bring an element of grit and toughness to the back end, which has already had many in Leafs Nation asking for Treliving to bring him back to Toronto. Two major holes on the Leafs roster is another proven defender and a 3rd line centre. The Schenn brothers would fill those roles admirably, to say the least.
There would be hurdles to adding the Schenn’s to the roster. The first is the obvious fact that they come with a combined caphit of $9.25M. It would be nearly impossible to fit that much salary onto the roster without moving out one very substantial deal, or multiple smaller contracts. For example, Max Domi ($3.75M), David Kampf ($2.4M), Ryan Reaves ($1.35M) and Simon Benoit ($1.35M) combine for a caphit of $8.85M. With the space the Leafs currently have that would be enough to make things happen, but that would also mean that one of Nashville or St. Louis would want to add Domi, who is having a down year, for 3 more seasons, or Kampf, who is overpaid, for another 2 seasons after this one. While those players represent salary dumps at this moment in time, Reaves (1 more season) and Benoit (2 more seasons) also have term on their deals, which could complicate things, but they’re serviceable players in my opinion.
It’s always possible that a team could roll the dice on a player like Domi or Kampf, but the more likely scenario is they offload pending RFA’s such as Connor Dewar ($1.18M) and/or Connor Timmins ($1.1M) to create capspace. While Timmins has had stretches of solid play, he isn’t a guy that you would hang onto at all costs, especially if it meant adding a playoff effective defender in Luke Schenn. Meanwhile, Dewar has been a non-factor this year, suiting up in just 29 games and producing 0 goals and 3 assists. The issue is that they combine for just $2.28M, which is just enough to add Luke to the roster when it’s combined with their current space.
Further complicating the situation is the imminent return of Calle Jarnkrok. His $2.1M has been on LTIR all season, which gave Leafs Nation hope that he could be activated for Game 1 of the playoffs, which would provide valuable depth at that time or year and effectively allow them to use his caphit to add at the deadline. Now that we know he won’t be out of the lineup for the duration of the season, it presents questions. What are the Leafs able to do now that they can’t dip further into their LTIR pool? With just 4 games left before the deadline, can Jarnkrok himself be a trade candidate?
Last note on capspace: would the Predators be willing to retain on Luke Schenn? The Blues retaining part of Brayden’s contract seems out of the question, with 3 years and $14.8M remaining on his deal, but with a shorter contract and less money, Luke may be a different story. Also, if not the Predators or Blues, what would be the cost to have a 3rd party retain on either of the Schenn brothers?
If, and we know it’s a massive IF, they can figure out the cap complications, there are still further hurdles and that’s the simple cost to acquire the players. Brayden Schenn is said to cost a high draft pick and possibly more. Whether a high pick means a 1st or 2nd round selection is unknown, but you have to question if he’s still worth that much with that contract. He’s currently on pace for about 17 goals and 47pts, which would be even with his 20 goals and 46pts from last season, but a clear step below a career that has seen him post around 60pts a season. At 33 years of age, with term on his deal and showing signs of regression, is this the player that you want to add to the group right now? Further, if you are willing to spend “high” picks and/or prospects, is it possible to add a better, younger version of him with those valuable assets?
Luke Schenn would cost less to acquire but there’s a reason he left Toronto for Nashville and that was the $2.75M per season contract that he was offered in free agency. If the Leafs weren’t willing to pay him that much when he was part of the organization, it seems unlikely that they would want to pay him that now. That could mean paying the price to Nashville or a 3rd party to retain some of his contract, which raises the cost for the 3rd pair defender.
In short, it appears that paying the price to acquire either player would mean overpaying to acquire said player(s).
My final opinion is that if you could add the Schenn brothers with significant salary retention, while also getting them at a reasonable cost, then you should do it. They would add size and snarl to the roster, which could be a major need considering the road to the Stanley Cup might go through both of the Tkachuk brothers. They would also appear to fit snugly into their respective roles of 3C and 3RD. However, the likelihood of adding them without paying a premium is very small, which would make me shy away from pulling the trigger on a deal. Treliving has to take the organization’s lack of valuable trade assets into account, as well as the core group’s lack of playoff success, and spend those assets wisely.
To create conversation and controversy, here are a couple of trade offers to make fun of:
To TOR: Luke Schenn ($750K retained), 6th (NSH ’25)
To NSH: Ryan Reaves, Conor Dewar, Connor Timmins, 3rd (EDM ’25)
The idea here would be for Nashville to add Reaves to replace Schenn’s toughness and to add a locker room presence. Meanwhile, Timmins would fill in for Schenn on the back end. Dewar is a cap casualty that would be released at season’s end, or retained to add depth to Nashville’s forward group. The Leafs would add size to the back end and a veteran presence that has won a Cup before.
To TOR: Brayden Schenn ($2M retained), Oskar Sundkvist ($750K retained)
To STL: David Kampf, Calle Jarnkrok, Matt Benning, Nick Robertson, Ben Danford, 1st (TOR ’27), 2nd (FLA ’25)
The idea here would be that…. this doesn’t make any sense!! St. Louis wouldn’t do this, nor would the Leafs. Toronto would lose all of their depth through both deals but especially this one and are basically paying for salary retention and to dump players for capspace, when they should be paying for quality players. The Blues would have too much cap tied up in retained salary and the Leafs’ most unwanted contracts and the return would be a 1st round selection that doesn’t project to play for your team until the 2030-2031 season, a shot in the dark at the draft in the 2nd round of 2025 and a prospect that hasn’t lived up to his 1st round billing after his draft year. If you’d like to tweak this with a different prospect or picks feel free, but in my opinion it makes little difference. What this offer actually shows is just how much capspace would have to be freed up and/or retained in order to make a trade for Brayden Schenn happen. Thank you Darren Dreger for mentioning Brayden Schenn as a trade target, which resulted in me writing this complete waste of time of an article.