The Toronto Maple Leafs are headed into free agency with a clear opening on the right side, and Patrik Laine looks like the kind of swing that could make sense if the price is right.
Free agency opens on July 1, and Toronto has room to keep reshaping the roster after landing Gavin McKenna first overall. That pick brought in a dynamic playmaking winger, but the offence still has gaps that need filling if the Leafs want to get back into the playoffs and make noise in a crowded Eastern Conference.
Laine is the type of name that immediately stands out because of what he’s done before. He was the second overall pick in the 2016 Draft, going right after the Leafs took Auston Matthews.
The debate over who would end up as the better NHL player never really lasted, with Matthews clearly pulling away, but Laine still carved out a strong early run with the Winnipeg Jets. He scored 110 goals over his first three seasons and was a big part of Winnipeg’s playoff push in 2017-18, when he put up five goals and 12 points in 17 games.
His path since then has been more uneven. Winnipeg moved him to the Columbus Blue Jackets at the start of the 2020-21 season, and he never quite matched that early scoring pace again.
He later returned to Canada with the Montreal Canadiens, where he scored 20 goals in 52 games in his first season. Then came the injury-ravaged 2025-26 campaign, in which he appeared in only five games, though his end-of-season comments suggested he may have been ready to come back sooner than people realized.
Even with the stop-start nature of the last few years, Laine still brings something Toronto needs. The Leafs were heavily outscored last season, and while the main issues were on the defensive and goaltending side, adding a natural finisher would help a roster trying to keep pace in a tough conference. Laine has 238 career goals in 537 regular season games, and with the right setup, he could still score 30-plus in a season.
Toronto also lines up well from a roster-fit standpoint. The Leafs have a real need for right-handed forwards, and Laine could step into a second-line right wing role behind William Nylander on the top line.
In that scenario, his linemates could be John Tavares and possibly Gavin McKenna to start the year. McKenna’s passing and Tavares’ still-potent offensive game could pair neatly with Laine’s willingness to shoot, giving him a chance to rediscover the touch that made him such a dangerous scorer early in his career.
He’d also give the Leafs another power-play threat, and that alone would make the lineup look different from the one under Craig Berube.
The real question is cost. Laine is coming off a season in which injury limited him to five games, and his best production is no longer recent.
So would he be looking for something close to the four years, $8.7 million AAV he’s leaving behind? If he’s open to a one- or two-year deal with more prove-it money, Toronto could live with that.
At 28, he still has time to rebuild his value and cash in again at 30.
If he wants $8.7 million or more, though, the Leafs may need to keep shopping. They have real urgency on the right side, and there may not be another free agent with Laine’s scoring upside. If a trade doesn’t bring in an upgrade, taking the gamble on Laine could still be the best path, especially with the cap rising and John Chayka having over $22 million to work with.
Laine’s upside, his fit, and the Leafs’ need all point in the same direction. There’s risk here because of the injuries, but if Toronto can land him this summer, it could be one more move that pushes the team back toward playoff contention.
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