Dewar, who'll be a depth center for Toronto, had 10 goals and four assists with the Wild in 57 games this season.
Dewar, who'll be a depth center for Toronto, had 10 goals and four assists with the Wild in 57 games this season.
Connor Dewar is the Maple Leafs' lone acquisition on trade deadline day.
A 5-foot-10 center, Dewar was acquired from the Minnesota Wild by Toronto for a 2026 fourth-round pick and prospect Dmitry Ovchinnikov (who'll remain with the Marlies while on loan from the Wild). The 24-year-old forward has a cap hit of $800,000 and will be a restricted free agent after this season.
Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving addressed the media following the 3:00 p.m. deadline, stating the trade call hasn't officially been done yet, but that they had added Dewar to their team.
"What has attracted us to him is — he's a real defensively responsible center ice man. I don't think you can have too many centre ice men. He's proficient on the penalty kill. A specific area that we wanted to see if we could help ourselves with," Treliving said.
"He gives us more depth in the middle. We've talked briefly with Sheldon (Keefe) over the course of today, but a lot over the last few weeks of areas that we'd like to address, and that's where we think Connor fits in with us.
"He's a guy who's defensively sound, he's a very competitive player, and hopefully he can help us on the penalty kill."
Down the middle, the Maple Leafs now have Auston Matthews, Max Domi, John Tavares, David Kampf, and Pontus Holmberg (who's been used as a winger as of late). It's yet to be seen where Dewar fits, but Toronto is happy to add another center.
Where the forward could help the most is — as Treliving said — on the penalty kill. The Maple Leafs' penalty kill is ranked 22nd in the NHL this season, sitting at 77.5%. That's the sixth-worst penalty kill in the Atlantic Division, only ahead of the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators.
Dewar played nearly 132 minutes on the PK this season with the Wild, being on the ice for seven goals against, but also four goals for, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
Treliving, on Friday, said that this move, along with acquiring Ilya Lyubushkin and Joel Edmundson, was to make this team better. But the Maple Leafs aren't worried about any opponent, they're just focused on making the playoffs first.
"You're trying to make your team better in ways that you can. There's big moves that happen and then there's small incremental moves, and that's what we were trying to do with our team," Treliving said on Friday.
"I think if you circle one team, you're saying, 'Okay, we've got to prepare for this team,' we gotta get into the playoffs. We gotta get in there. That's our main focus here right now is qualifying.
"You get in, they're all good teams. You're playing a good opponent whoever you may play. But our first goal, we got some work to do yet. We still got 20 some odd games to go here to earn the right to get into the playoffs. And that's goal number one."
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