Kirill Marchenko Trade: Montreal Can Pay a Price Toronto Cannot

The Kirill Marchenko trade market has a favourite, and it is not Toronto

The Kirill Marchenko trade file was supposed to be a Maple Leafs story. It was framed that way for most of the summer: a 26-year-old scoring winger on a bargain contract, a Columbus club that had lost control of the situation, and a Toronto team that needs exactly this player. As training camps open, the story has drifted somewhere much less comfortable. The team most credibly positioned to land Marchenko is the Montreal Canadiens, and there is very little the Leafs can do about it.

Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell confirmed on the record that teams have called about Marchenko while making clear Columbus will only move him in a deal that improves the Blue Jackets. He has also said he expects Marchenko to report when Columbus opens training camp on September 16. That is a general manager negotiating from strength, and strength is expensive.

What Columbus is actually saying

Read Waddell's position carefully and the message is not "Marchenko is available." It is "Marchenko is available for a package that makes us better right now." Those are different markets. The first one takes picks and futures. The second one takes NHL players or blue-chip prospects, and takes them at a premium because Columbus does not have to do anything.

Reports through the summer indicated Marchenko requested a trade, which normally erodes a team's leverage. It has not here, largely because of the contract. Marchenko carries a $3.85-million cap hit for 2026-27 and then hits restricted free agency with arbitration rights in 2027. Columbus controls him for this season regardless of how the relationship feels, and the acquiring team gets a full year of surplus value before the raise arrives.

That raise is projected to be substantial. AFP Analytics has him landing something in the range of five years at $8.9 million annually. Any team trading for him is trading for one cheap year and the right to negotiate the expensive ones.

Why he fits Toronto so obviously

Marchenko is the archetype of what the Maple Leafs have been missing. He scored 27 goals and added 40 assists for 67 points in 76 games last season, leading Columbus in goals for a third consecutive season. That followed a 74-point breakout in 2024-25. He is a right-shot winger with size who finishes, which is the precise job description for the spot beside Auston Matthews.

The cap hit makes it more tempting still. Toronto is projected over the upper limit heading into camp and will need Max Domi's long-term injured reserve relief and some demotions to get compliant. A $3.85-million winger who produces at a $9-million rate is one of the few additions that would fit at all.

There is one blemish worth naming honestly. Marchenko scored two goals in the final 13 games of last season, and 67 points was a step back from 74 the year before. That is a soft finish, not a decline, but it is the sort of thing a buyer should price in rather than wave away.

The asking price, and why Montreal can meet it

The reported ask starts at a high-end prospect plus a first-round pick, with additional pieces beyond that. Speculation around a Canadiens package has centred on names like Michael Hage or Alexander Zharovsky as the prospect component — the sort of asset Montreal has stockpiled and Toronto has not.

That asymmetry is the whole story. The Canadiens spent years accumulating draft capital and prospect depth and are now in the market for a top-six forward with the cap room and the youth surplus to pay. Toronto spent the same years converting futures into rentals.

Use the Luke Evangelista trade as the benchmark. New Jersey paid a conditional 2028 first and a 2028 second for a 24-year-old coming off 56 points on an expiring $3-million deal. Marchenko is more productive, controlled for an extra cycle, and has a lower cap hit. If a first and a second is the floor for Evangelista, Marchenko's price is a first plus a real prospect at minimum — and we walked through why Toronto is shut out of that market earlier today.

What Toronto would actually have to give up

Start with the pick. The Leafs' own 2027 first is owed to Philadelphia from the Scott Laughton trade, with a condition that can send it to Boston instead and push the Flyers to 2028. Either way, Toronto is handing out firsts in both drafts. The one first the Leafs hold is a conditional selection from Colorado out of the Nicolas Roy trade — a late pick from a good team, which is not the currency that closes a deal like this. The full ledger is on our Leafs draft pick page and in our breakdown of which firsts Toronto owes the Flyers and Bruins.

Then the prospect. Toronto's pool ranks in the middle of the league, and the top of it is Gavin McKenna, who is untouchable, and Easton Cowan, who is not — but trading Cowan for Marchenko is trading a cost-controlled 21-year-old for a winger who needs a $9-million extension in ten months. That is a lateral move dressed as an upgrade, and we have argued that Cowan is the cheaper answer to the same problem.

Then the cap. Even at $3.85 million, Toronto has to send salary out to make the math work, which means a defenceman from the group creating the roster crunch on the back end. Three moving parts, all of them hard, for a player Columbus does not have to trade.

The Atlantic consequence

If Marchenko goes to Montreal, the Leafs do not just lose a target. They watch a division rival that finished ahead of them add a 30-goal winger for assets that cost it nothing it needed.

Toronto missed the playoffs last season and opens 2026-27 against the Canadiens on September 29, a matchup we framed around the gap between these two teams in the standings. Adding Marchenko would widen it. The Atlantic is already the hardest road back in hockey, and an 84-game schedule with two extra divisional games per team means every rival upgrade costs Toronto more points than it used to.

That is the argument for Chayka forcing the issue. It is also, on balance, the wrong argument. Making a bad trade because a rival might make a good one is how a front office ends up with no picks, no prospects and no first-round selections in consecutive drafts. Toronto knows what that feels like.

What Chayka should do instead

Stay in the conversation without leading it. Marchenko reports to Columbus on September 16, plays, and either signs an extension or becomes a far more urgent file at the trade deadline in March. Columbus has every incentive to wait; Toronto has every incentive to be there when waiting stops working.

In the meantime, the Leafs have the one thing the market wants that they can actually spare: NHL defencemen. A hockey trade — a blueliner and salary out, a scoring winger and salary in — is the only structure that fits Toronto's asset base. It will not land Marchenko. It might land the second-best option at a fraction of the cost, and this roster does not need a star on the right wing. It needs a competent one.

The rest of the plan is internal: Cowan, McKenna, and a healthy Matthews. That is not an exciting September answer. It is the only one that does not mortgage 2029.

What's next

Columbus opens camp September 16 with Marchenko expected to be there. If he is not, or if he shows up unhappy, the leverage shifts and the price drops — that is the scenario Toronto should be waiting for rather than bidding against.

Watch Montreal. If the Canadiens move a top prospect for a winger before opening night, the Marchenko file is closed and the Atlantic just got harder. And watch Chayka's defence corps: any trade of a Toronto blueliner in the next two weeks is the signal that a forward is coming back. Cap implications for every scenario are on the Leafs contracts page.