Blackhawks Deal McCabe and Lafferty to Toronto for 1st and 2nd Round Picks

Just now, the Chicago Blackhawks made their big move. They have sent D Jake McCabe (50% retained - 2x2m after this season) and F Sam Lafferty with picks in 2024 (5th) and 2025 (5th) to the Toronto Maple Leafs for this return:

RW Joey Anderson (2016 3rd round pick by the Devils) whom is a 6'0 207 pound forward that is 24 years old. He has gone between the AHL and the NHL for the past 5 seasons. He does have 16 points in 72 career NHL games. Ironically his last game played was February 15th against the Hawks.

LW Pavel Gogolev (Russian winger) - 23 years old and has played between the AHL and ECHL the last 2 seasons. I have to be honest, this is pretty much just an AHL depth piece and nothing more.

2025 1st Round Pick (Conditions: Top 10 Protected) and 2026 2nd Round Pick

So the way I see this deal is that McCabe returned a future 1st and Lafferty returned a future 2nd. Anderson can and will play at the NHL and has a controllable contract. Hopefully he can improve as an NHL player and increase his value enough to gain a pick from his play in the next 2 seasons.

My instant reaction is that this is underwhelming. I kind of thought a deal like this was the worst case for the sole reason it did not net us a high pick in a draft that is, by all accounts, better than a typical draft pool.

If by some miracle the Leafs lose Matthews or Nylander and become more of an average club in 2 years we could net a 1st round pick in the teens... but that's a long time from now.

Positive spin: We now have two 1st round picks in 2023, 2024, and 2025.