Another list! Today it's who the Leafs can't trade without the player's consent, and who is hard to trade. NMCs and NTCs in other words.

What are those things?

No-movement clauses or NMCs are wording in the player's SPC that prohibits any trade or use of waivers without their consent.

No-trade clauses or NTCs prohibit trades only.

Both types of clauses can be modified with a list of teams the player would be unwilling to be traded to, making all the others free to be used. There is also the reverse style of list, less common, of teams the player will accept.

These are the Leafs and their clauses. 🎅

Full NMC:

  1. Auston Matthews
  2. William Nylander
  3. John Tavares
  4. Morgan Rielly
  5. Chris Tanev

NTCs:

  1. Max Domi, 13 team list
  2. Dakota Joshua, 12 team list
  3. Calle Järnkrok, 10 team list
  4. Jake McCabe, full no-trade
  5. Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 16 team list
  6. Brandon Carlo, 8 team list

Clarifying notes:

Dakota Joshua's contract was signed in Vancouver. There is a common misconception that waiving a no-trade or being traded at all voids the clause. This is not the case.

Brandon Carlo's list drops to a three team list after this season. Usually, these lists are renewed on July 1.

All of this information is freely available on PuckPedia, and likely other places too.

Yesterday there was a trade of a defender to the Oilers:

Of note, that's a pick for two years from now, and only one pick in return for the player and the retention. He is 32 and a bottom four defender of the fourth or fifth type but I think the Oilers got a bit of a deal there.

They could have just kept Troy Stecher. And I think they'd be fine if they had, but Murphy is a "big minutes eater" sort of defender and Stecher is "neither great nor awful at anything" sort of player. In some ways, Stecher is very like Matias Maccelli, and they might disappoint teams for the same reason. They don't often give you a big rush of satisfaction at a big play or a high-skilled moment. The players that have those, particularly if they score goals, keep people hoping for another one.

I actually think these are smart players to target. If you match up a player who is slightly good at generating offence and defence and quality of both of those, you can put them with anyone who is a player tilted to one skill and you prosper. Jake McCabe is one of these guys too.

If defence is cheap (like Murphy) then boring is even cheaper.

Pierre LeBrun was on Overdrive yesterday afternoon, and there is only one topic: the Leafs. Although they started with the Murphy trade above and talked about some guy named Pettersson, whoever that is.

https://post.futurimedia.com/chumam/playlist/listen-59748.html

I'll skip the bit about the fans being mad, the 9 years of futility talk, all of that. You can do that yourselves, you don't need help. Onto the discussion of how do they improve the roster.

On Management: Will Treliving and Berube be back next year? No one can say that one way or another.

On the Roster: If they can fast forward the offseason and add a player now, they will. It's for next year, but that's hard to do.

Who are they willing to trade: More than just pending UFAs. An example is that they would make a deal for Oliver Ekman-Larsson if one was there, so far it isn't.

Overall plan: They can't nuke the roster and rebuild. It's more like Boston a year ago and trying to get to a better spot.

O'Neill's question: What are they going to do about guys who just aren't getting it done. LeBrun assumes he means Morgan Rielly, and he discussed the NMC as above. And he then says a lot of this is going to depend on who is running the team next year.

I found that very interesting because while LeBrun is echoing Darren Dreger's comments yesterday, this last bit gets at the idea that the style of play needs to determine the roster. I consider this to be a very good argument for making a coaching decision now. It's not like the coach and the roster are independent things, they are intrinsically linked.

I find LeBrun on Overdrive the most interesting listen at these times. The hosts are blunter and more sure of their position, and he will rise to their level of straight talk.

Now that said, I don't actually expect Craig Berube to be fired. I can't even decide if I think Treliving would be allowed to fire him.

That's all you get, don't believe everything you read, check the source, and stop posting things without links!

From The Branches