The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Emil Andrae in a trade earlier this offseason.
The young defenseman seemed to be shaping up for a chance to play in Toronto and grow his game after coming from the Philadelphia Flyers in the Joseph Woll deal.
Instead, Andrae will never play a regular season game for the Leafs, at least not right now.
He was part of the trade package going to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday in the deal that was headlined by Kirill Marchenko coming to Toronto and Matthew Knies going to Columbus.
Andrae was clearly a player that Columbus wanted, but it's fascinating that Toronto traded him before he even took the ice for them in a game that counted.
The Maple Leafs clearly like Marchenko a lot.
There appear to be two reasons at play here.
The first is the most obvious — Toronto wanted to get a deal done for Marchenko, and the Blue Jackets seem to have asked for Andrae.
The Maple Leafs decided the blue-liner wouldn't be the holdup on this blockbuster trade.
The other reason, though, is that Andrae isn't a big guy, and that's a mold the Leafs already have some of.
Andrae can work out somewhere, but maybe it would've been a bit redundant in Toronto.
This is how Daily Faceoff's Steven Ellis describes Andrae:
Toronto has a lot of strong defensemen even without Andrae.
Parts could shift around without Andrae, but it's possible their three defensive pairings are set.
It appears that Morgan Rielly and Darren Raddysh may open the season together.
That would leave Jake McCabe to be paired with Chris Tanev .
And then there's Oliver Ekman-Larsson with Troy Stecher .
Moving on from Andrae quickly does remove a bit of a logjam, and it allows the Leafs to be a bit more physical on the blue line rather than relying solely on technical skill.
Toronto opens its season Tuesday night at home against the Canadiens, so it'll show immediately if they have a defensive unit that's already locked in and good to go, even without Andrae.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
The post Why Maple Leafs Traded Emil Andrae Despite No Games Played For Toronto appeared first on HEAVY .
