The first significant move new Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager John Chayka made was trading bruising defenceman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for young puck-moving blue liner Emil Andrae. That was a clear indicator of where Toronto’s new management group thinks the team had to improve. It comes as little surprise that their next move was to add another skilled defenceman, but it may be a surprise it is of this magnitude of a sign-and-trade for Tampa Bay Lightning rearguard Darren Raddysh, as reported by Elliotte Friedman. Raddysh had a breakout 2025-26 season with 22 goals and 48 assists in 73 games, tying Zach Werenski for the third-most goals among blue liners while finishing seventh in points. Raddysh is going into his age-30 season.

Tampa Bay gets a fifth-round pick in the 2026 Draft as their return. Raddysh’s new contract is for eight years at an $8.5M annual cap hit, per Pierre LeBrun.

Let's break it down.

While the 2025-26 season was Raddysh's breakout, it wasn't out of nowhere. Per Natural Stat Trick, Raddysh totaled 1.0 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 back in 2023-24, which was the rate of a low-end top-pair blue liner. In 2024-25, that rate jumped to 1.49 points/60 at 5-on-5, which was a top-10 mark among the league's defencemen. His breakout 2025-26 season saw that mark jump again to 1.56 points/60. On a 60-minute basis, there has been an increase each year he's been in the league, culminating with back-to-back top-10 finishes in each of the last two seasons. Over the last two years, his 1.53 points/60 at 5-on-5 is sixth among all regular defencemen, trailing only Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar, Zach Werenski, Evan Bouchard, and Lane Hutson.

On a 60-minute basis, it wasn't even that Raddysh was a lot more productive on the power play, either: he averaged 4.52 points/60 at 5-on-4 across his first two full seasons, and 5.35 points/60 at 5-on-4 in his breakout 2025-26 campaign. That is an 18% improvement, which is good, but that improvement doesn't explain his overall breakout.  

What changed in 2025-26 was Raddysh's usage: Victor Hedman missed 49 games and was otherwise ineffective; Ryan McDonagh missed 34 games; Emil Lilleberg missed 32 games; Erik Cernak missed 21 games. That is a lot of ice time for Tampa Bay's depth to make up, and Raddysh was a big beneficiary. It led to his share of power-play ice time nearly doubling – from 38% to 74% – compared to the year before, per Frozen Tools, while his even-strength share rose from 30% to 36%. He finally got his chance to shine and made the most with his opportunity. And it wasn't in a purely sheltered role because all the players who would usually shelter him missed a lot of games.

Raddysh is a true dual-threat offensive defenceman in that he can score and he can set up his teammates. Over the last three years, among 178 defencemen with at least 2200 minutes of 5-on-5 play, Raddysh is 32^nd by goals per 60 minutes and 12^th by assists per 60 minutes. The inclination might be to say that this production is because he skated on a team with Nikita Kucherov, and he was more productive at 5-on-5 with the superstar winger on the ice, but Raddysh still posted 1.2 points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 over the last two years with Kucherov off the ice. To put that into context, across the prior two seasons, Lane Hutson posted 1.22 points/60 without Nick Suzuki and Evan Bouchard registered 1.22 points/60 without Leon Draisaitl. Even with those star forwards off the ice, each defenceman produced at a top-30 rate. They are still very productive without those high-end teammates, they just get elevated because of them. Such is hockey.

There is always a chance any signing doesn't work, and Raddysh is already on the wrong side of 30 years old, so what his play looks like in the back half of this contract is a fair concern. But this isn't the case where the breakout season is a complete outlier from what the player had done. All that really changed for Raddysh was that he got more minutes than he received in his first two seasons. That he got those minutes and still put up better per-minute production rates should be seen as a positive. Sometimes, a player does well in a lesser role but cannot bring the same level of play in a bigger role. That was not the case with Raddysh. In fact, by some play-driving metrics, his play improved in a bigger role.

It isn't to say Raddysh isn't without flaws – he isn't a great defensive defenceman – but we care about fantasy production and Raddysh's puck-moving skills upgrades Toronto's blue line significantly, which raises the production potential for the forwards. He can run a power play, too, and the Leafs had a below-average PP in 2025-26 (though they were much better in the second half). Raddysh might not repeat his 20-goal, 70-point season from a year ago, depending on how new Head Coach Jim Hiller asks him and his team to play, but Raddysh can certainly help raise the offensive level of anyone who shares the ice with him, and that's a big deal for the Leafs as a whole, and guys like Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Matthew Knies, especially.  

This is bad news for Morgan Rielly. He already had an on-again-off-again relationship with the top PP unit, and barring Raddysh not being able to do anything on the man advantage, Rielly has lost that top PP role. Without those minutes, and with others ahead of him on the depth chart, it's not hard to see Rielly dropping to, or under, 20 minutes a game. It also might make Andrae the seventh defenceman, depending what else the Leafs do with their blue line this offseason, and how healthy the lineup is.

This is good news for Charle-Edouard D'Astous. Barring another acquisition, it seems likely that Hedman gets a crack at running the top PP unit for the Lightning, but D'Astous has all the look to be Tampa Bay's next late-blooming breakout defenceman. He is a guy who can set up teammates and skate with the puck, which helps soften the blow of losing Raddysh. A healthy Tampa Bay blue line might keep D'Astous in a third-pair role, but if there's a Lightning blue liner who can have an ascension similar to what Raddysh had in his late-20s, it's D'Astous. It might just take a year or two.

Who This Helps

Victor Hedman

Charle-Edouard D'Astous

Toronto Forwards

Who This Hurts

Morgan Rielly

Emil Andrae

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Tampa Bay Forwards