With a longtime piece of their top-six all but out the door, Toronto made a move to soften the blow of Mitch Marner's seemingly inevitable departure. On Monday, the Leafs sent a conditional 2027 third-round pick to Utah in exchange for 24-year-old Matias Maccelli. That pick will become a 2029 second rounder if Maccelli posts at least 51 points and the Leafs make the playoffs during the 2025-26 campaign. 

What do the Mammoth Get?

Aside from that future pick? Cap space. By moving Maccelli's $3.425 million cap hit, the Mammoth now have $18.4 million in cap space. That gives them a lot of flexibility to make a splash in free agency, which checks out as they've been linked to big names like Nikolaj Ehlers and Brad Marchand. 

What do the Leafs Get?

I honestly really like this deal for Toronto. They paid a very reasonable price to acquire a promising young player who has produced over a large sample but fell victim to unfavourable deployment last year. Maccelli posted an impressive 63-point pace as a rookie, finishing fourth in Calder voting during the 2022-23 campaign. He followed that up with a solid 57-point pace as a sophomore, but things took a turn this past regular season as he fell to a 27-point pace. To slightly excuse last year's poor output, I want to note that Utah scored on just 6.2% of its shots at 5v5 while Maccelli was on the ice. In previous years, that shooting percentage was closer to 10%, so there was certainly an element of bad luck last year. Another obvious difference between last year and his two productive seasons is ice time. He was skating around 16 minutes a night when he was scoring, but averaged less than 14 minutes per game when the offense dried up. 

In Toronto, I'm expecting Maccelli's ice time to look more like those productive years, around 16 minutes a night. I'm thinking something like Michael Bunting or Tyler Bertuzzi with the Leafs: skating in the top-six at even strength, with secondary power-play deployment. Although the Leafs ran a five-forward power-play last year, and such a setup could theoretically accommodate Maccelli on PP1, the Leafs will probably have to shift back to a 4F1D setup with Marner out of the picture. Marner's defensive ability allowed him to play the role a blueliner would typically play on the PP, but I'm not sure if any of Toronto's remaining forwards will be used in that same role. Speaking of the power-play, it's worth noting that Maccelli had a decent amount of PP production during his best years, posting 13 PPPs as a rookie and 12 as a sophomore while seeing 39% of Utah's total time with the man advantage. In Toronto, skating on the second unit probably means a power-play share closer to 25-30%, which may mean less PP production for Maccelli. Still, he's in store for a massive upgrade in linemates at even-strength, going from Lawson Crouse and Nick Bjugstad these past few years in Utah, to Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies (most likely). Maccelli is a really strong passer, and should serve as an excellent complement to an elite shooter and goal scorer like Matthews. I'm expecting strong fantasy value from Maccelli this season.