Kent Johnson Trade Talk: The Cheap Swing the Maple Leafs Should Take

A Kent Johnson trade is the rare Maple Leafs idea that costs almost nothing

The most sensible Kent Johnson trade pitch for the Toronto Maple Leafs starts with a number: $1.8 million. That is the cap hit Johnson carries into the final season of the three-year, $5.4-million contract he signed with Columbus in July 2024. For a 23-year-old former fifth overall pick who scored 57 points two seasons ago, that is the cheapest legitimate top-nine upside available anywhere in the league right now, and Toronto is one of the few teams whose roster has an obvious hole shaped exactly like him.

Johnson's name resurfaced in Leafs circles this week as speculation about Toronto's remaining middle-six vacancy picked up alongside chatter about Columbus making further changes before camp. None of it is a report of active talks. Treat it as what it is: an idea being floated, not a deal being negotiated. But it is a good idea, and it deserves more than a passing mention.

What happened to Kent Johnson last season

The case for buying low exists because last season was ugly. Johnson finished 2025-26 with seven goals and 15 assists — 22 points in 76 games — while averaging 13:14 of ice time, the lowest of his career and roughly four minutes below his previous year. He put 114 shots on net and finished minus-8. He was a healthy scratch on multiple occasions.

Set that against 2024-25, when he posted 57 points in 68 games with 24 goals. That is not a marginal decline. It is a player going from a 0.84-point-per-game scorer to a fourth-line body in twelve months. Something broke, and the shooting numbers point at part of it: Johnson converted at 6.1 per cent last season, comfortably the worst mark of his career and a fraction of the rate that produced his 24-goal year.

Shooting percentage regression at that magnitude is usually part luck and part role. Johnson's ice time collapsed at the same time his finishing did, and it is genuinely difficult to separate the two. A player pushed down the lineup gets worse linemates, less power-play time and fewer offensive-zone starts, and then gets judged on the output. That is the argument for a change of scenery, and it is the argument Toronto should be making internally.

Why the fit works in Toronto

Toronto's forward group after Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Matthew Knies and John Tavares is a collection of role players signed to do specific jobs. Colton Sissons, Nick Paul, Jack Roslovic and Brandon Duhaime are useful. None of them is a skill bet. Chayka's summer added structure, competitiveness and penalty-killing, and it did not add a single player with a realistic path to 60 points.

Johnson is that bet. He is a genuinely gifted puck-handler and passer, he can play either wing or the middle, and at 23 he is young enough that the 57-point season is more likely the truth than the 22-point one. He would slot naturally on a second line with Tavares, or as the skill complement on a third line that currently has none. And if Gavin McKenna arrives as advertised, Toronto will need more skilled forwards to surround him with, not fewer — a point worth reading alongside McKenna's own stated goals for his rookie season.

The obstacle is arithmetic, not judgment

Here is where the pitch gets harder. Toronto currently projects at roughly $106.75 million in cap commitments against a $104-million ceiling, which is about $2.75 million over. The club expects to solve that through long-term injured reserve and by burying depth contracts in the AHL. It is a solvable compliance problem and a completely unsolvable acquisition problem.

You cannot add $1.8 million to a roster that is already over the limit without sending $1.8 million the other way. That is not a technicality — it is the whole obstacle. Any Kent Johnson trade requires Toronto to move a comparable cap hit out, which likely means a depth forward on a multi-year deal, and Toronto's roster is full of exactly those. Our rundown of the club's toughest contracts to move explains why that is not as easy as it sounds.

There is also the question of what Columbus wants. Johnson is a restricted free agent next summer, so the acquiring team gets a full season plus negotiating rights. That has value, and the Blue Jackets know it. A second-round pick and a depth piece is probably the honest starting point, and Toronto's cupboard of picks has been thinned by an aggressive summer.

What the price should actually be

Trade speculation almost never bothers with the boring half, so here it is. Johnson's value to Columbus is not what he produced last season; it is what he might produce for somebody else, plus the restricted free agent rights that come attached. Those rights are the real asset. Whoever acquires him controls his next contract, and if the 57-point version reappears, that contract will look like a bargain for years.

That argues against the fantasy of a fourth-round pick. A reasonable framework starts at a second-round selection, and Columbus would be within its rights to ask for a young roster player instead. Toronto's difficulty is that it has to send salary back regardless, which means the outgoing piece is doing double duty — it has to clear cap space and satisfy the seller. Those two requirements point at different players, and reconciling them is exactly the sort of problem that kills August trades.

There is a cleaner version. Columbus retains nothing, Toronto sends a signed depth forward on a comparable cap hit plus a mid-round pick, and both teams get what they need — Columbus gets a player who fits its lineup and a selection, Toronto gets the lottery ticket. Neither side has to blink much. It is the kind of deal that gets made in the last week of camp when injuries have clarified who has room, not in the middle of August when nobody does.

The case against doing it

Be fair to the other side. Johnson has now played five seasons in Columbus and produced exactly one good one. The 2024-25 year could be the outlier rather than the baseline. Players who lose their coach's confidence at 23 sometimes never get it back, and a market like Toronto is the worst possible place to rebuild fragile confidence. If he arrives, struggles for twenty games and gets scratched in November, the noise will be unbearable.

There is also a defensive question. Johnson has never been a strong defensive player, and Jim Hiller was hired in part to fix a team that finished 32-36-14 while defending badly. Adding a low-ice-time skill winger who does not check is not obviously what a new coach wants in his first camp.

Both objections are real. Neither is worth $1.8 million and one year of risk. That is the entire point of a buy-low: the price is set by the downside, and the downside here is a cheap fourth-liner you can bury or move at the deadline.

What's next

Nothing, in all likelihood, before September. Toronto has no cap room to make an addition today, and Columbus has no reason to sell into a market where every buyer is capped out in August. The realistic window is either late in camp, when injuries clarify who has space, or December, when a slow start somewhere makes a seller out of somebody.

But it belongs on Chayka's list. This roster is built to win now and has almost no internal scoring upside beyond the players already on it. Johnson is the cheapest available version of that upside in the entire league. Keep an eye on our contracts tracker for the cap space that would make it possible, and on the roster for the forward who would have to go the other way.