Leafs need to call Oilers about McDavid trade — even if it's a wild long shot

With the power of just one phone call and six words or less, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving could shake up the entire NHL.

All Treliving would have to say is something along the lines of, “Kenny, you ever consider trading Connor?”

Kenny, in this case, is Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland, reportedly in the last year of his contract with the team.

And Connor, of course, is the Oilers’ captain and three-time NHL MVP, somehow stuck on a team that’s off to a 5-12-1 start and at dire risk of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2019.

Toronto fans have dreamt of snatching McDavid — a Newmarket, Ontario, native who grew up cheering for the Leafs — from Edmonton over the last eight years ever since the generational talent landed with the Oilers in the 2015 NHL Draft lottery.

The answer from Holland to Treliving would be “no,” and the conversation would be a pretty short one. For better or worse, Edmonton seems committed to trying to build a Stanley Cup competitor around McDavid as he’s under contract with the team through 2026.

Toronto has four of their own forwards putting up a better-than-point-per-game pace as of right now, but it doesn’t seem realistic that they’d actually be able to put together a reasonable trade package from an asset standpoint for No. 97.

William Nylander is on a deal that expires this upcoming summer, while the deals of John Tavares and Mitch Marner expire in the summer of 2025. A McDavid deal centred around 33-year-old Tavares would never make sense for the Oilers — there’s a seven-year age gap between the two, and a Marner deal wouldn’t make any sense either considering he’d have no guarantees of sticking around Edmonton long-term.

And, then, of course, there’s 2021-22 Hart Trophy winner Auston Matthews, currently tied for the league lead in goals for 14. Any trade for McDavid would almost certainly have to include Matthews, who’s signed through 2028 with Toronto with a full no-movement clause and would have no reason to leave Toronto for Edmonton.

With two seasons left on his contract after this one and a full no-movement clause of his own, McDavid will more likely than not still have plenty of time left in Alberta, even if this season could end up being a complete wash.

It’s nonsensical to really try to draft up any realistic proposal to get McDavid to Toronto in the time being. But perhaps that’s exactly why Toronto should try making the call now.

Even a leak of a quick phone call of the Leafs asking about McDavid to a single media member would immediately become the top story in the NHL.

One tweet from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman saying something along the lines of “TOR called EDM to inquire about McDavid trade. Was told no” would immediately fuel two weeks of talk radio and social media wars across the country. Toronto has access to the biggest media outlets in the country, and it’d make sense to use them for positive leverage every once in a while.

And more importantly for the Leafs, it’d definitely reach McDavid due to the magnitude of the story. It’s about as close to tampering as you can get, with the subtle undertone of “we’re interested in you” leaking to McDavid some two-and-a-half-years out from his potential free agency.

The Oilers players and staff would have to answer questions about it, even if he’d almost certainly deny any sort of shot of McDavid leaving Edmonton. And for Toronto, it’d create enough of a media distraction to take the attention away from the team itself for a little bit.

Treliving has more immediate concerns than trying to sign a player in 2026. But we’re well into the second half of McDavid’s eight-year deal now, and teams will eventually start calling the Oilers about his availability if the team isn’t able to return to competitiveness in the near future.

McDavid will at some point have to sign another long-term deal either in Edmonton or elsewhere, and there’s no reason why Toronto shouldn’t start planting the seed now of him one day joining the Leafs.

Just because it might be implausible, doesn’t mean it’s not worth a try.

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