Leafs and Blue Jackets Scramble the Board with Six-Player Blockbuster
Hearing the Leafs-Jackets trade involving Knies and Marchenko is indeed going through. Involves six players overall including Elvis Merzlikins.
Nothing says 'NHL opening night' quite like two general managers panicking and throwing six players into a blender at the eleventh hour.
According to Pierre LeBrun, the and Columbus are finalizing a massive six-player trade centered around Matthew Knies and . Oh, and Elvis Merzlikins is in there too, just to make the salary cap math as confusing as humanly possible.
Let’s look at the actual hockey part first. is shipping out Knies, a 23-year-old wrecking ball who racked up 41 points and 100 hits in 46 games last year. He has been dealing with a nagging lower-body injury lately, but when healthy, he is exactly the kind of physical force you want in a playoff series.
In return, the Leafs get Marchenko. The guy is a pure sniper who buried 26 goals for Columbus last season. The catch is that Marchenko reportedly needs a contract extension to make this deal work, meaning is trading a cost-controlled asset for a guy who is about to ask for a very large bag of money.
Then there is the Merzlikins element. Reports suggest the goaltender is heading to long-term injured reserve. Because Knies makes roughly $4 million more than Marchenko this season, throwing Merzlikins into the mix is basically an accounting trick to make the cap numbers legal. It is the kind of spreadsheet gymnastics that only makes sense in a league where accountants are just as important as scouts.
For anyone holding futures tickets on either team, this completely scrambles the board. is betting that Marchenko’s scoring touch pushes them over the edge, while Columbus gets a young, physical cornerstone in Knies to help accelerate their rebuild.
hosts the tomorrow night. Whoever is actually left on the Maple Leafs roster by puck drop is going to need a name tag in the locker room.