This past weekend, there was a story out of Between the Pipes, written by a Toronto Maple Leafs beat reporter, that suggested the Utah Mammoth have been shopping top defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to the Maple Leafs.
Of course, with how powerful the Maple Leafs fanbase is, this caught on quickly and now has a lot of people talking. But, the idea of Utah trading Sergachev doesn’t make a lot of sense.
At 27 years old, Sergachev has a full no-trade clause, which makes it harder for the Mammoth to move him, especially considering they are a team on the rise. He was just acquired last off-season and had a very strong first year, helping stabilize the entire blue line around him. That makes it nearly impossible for Utah to even consider shopping him unless they were getting a return that would vastly improve their defense core.
The Mammoth have taken a huge step forward this off-season, which should allow them to make major improvements and even push for a playoff spot. It wouldn’t make much sense for Sergachev or the team to go through a trade that would create such a big hole on the back end.
At the end of the day, Sergachev is only entering year three of his eight-year deal. With Utah’s top defense prospects like Maveric Lamoureux, Dmitri Simashev, and Artyom Duda still a ways off from being bonafide NHL players, it only reinforces the point that it doesn’t make sense for the Mammoth to be shopping him to the Maple Leafs.
On top of that, the Maple Leafs only have about $2 million in cap space, which would likely force Utah to take on a considerable contract to make the deal work. That essentially shuts down any chance of a trade happening, especially to the Maple Leafs of all teams.
