RHD and defensemen in general aren't rare acquisitions though. Neither are high quality defensemen in general in the draft, trade market or free agency. They have been particularly challenging for the Maple Leafs in recent years only because they assembled a forward heavy group of prospects and always struggled to find the right trade targets because of the perceived value imbalance. Nylander and Marner were good to give up for a defenseman, Kapanen wasn't good enough. Meanwhile, teams were trading for Dougie Hamilton, Jacob Trouba, the list I provided above, etc. And of course when it comes time to draft these 6'4" defensemen, the Leafs prefer players like Amirov to a Schneider.
There we have dirrefent view, because I think getting those top4 dmans is actually pretty hard for rebuilding team. We are forward heavy, because in our drafts there haven't been any franchise dmans available. I mean guys like Hedman and Doughty, even with Hedman it took years that he got onto that Norris level. Trough trading it's hard or why Lamoriellos best aquisition was Zaitsev?
Teams value defense over offense. I bet we would have liked to trade Kapanen, Johnson etc. for young dman on that same calibre. I think that is the reason we wanted to keep Holl here, because this game is so fast nowadays that you need those right handed dmans and it's just natural that there is more lefties than righties. Which makes it even harder find. If you look up drafts from 2004 to 2021 there isn't that many star dmans on that round or if there is it might beg from 25th pick onwards or took years for that player to reach potential.
As captain hindsight it's easy to say now that we should have drafted Werenski instead of Marner, but the irony is that if we'd do that we wouldn't have forgive our front office on passing Marner when he starts his career the way he started it. Though we got extremely lucky that all our star picks panned out that way in Nylander, Marner and Matthews. In trade capital I think Marner and Nylander won't go 1on1 to same calibre defender, because those top2 dmans are so rare and sought after players.
Trouba is anomaly, because he wanted to play in Rangers. Jets wouldn't have traded him otherwise and he was off the market even then. Hamilton is in my books overrated and journeyman, but yeah have been available. We don't understand how lucky we are for having Rielly, what we paid for Muzzin is what you pay for experienced defense in the NHL. Vegas took lot of defenders and I think Seattle will too, then we should strike and find suitable trades if there is any.
About those Marner talks, if they leak you damn better be ready to trade him, because that trust factor between player and organization is out of the door that same day that happens. Players say that this is business and you can't never be sure, but if you know your on the market that stirs the pot and adds friction to the dressing room. I don't think this is the summer you want that.
Edit. If you analyze drafts those Schneider picks are usually pretty rare to hit.
Overlooking?? It’s mentioned at least a 100 times a day.
