THE Toronto Maple Leafs sent first and second round picks to Chicago at the 2023 trade deadline for Jake McCabe (And Sam Lafferty).

A big part of the appeal of the trade: McCabe would be sold for half price — just $2 million in cap dollars — for two more seasons.

This agreement will expire at the end of this season.

Replacing him: a five-year contract extension with a $4.51 million cap hit that establishes the 31-year-old as part of the team’s core for the future.

The Leafs announced the new deal Monday morning, two days after McCabe lost nearly 25 minutes in overtime in Boston.

Jake McSIGNED pic.twitter.com/7qy7FMCoSD

– Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 28, 2024

McCabe has become an increasingly important part of the Leafs’ backcourt. He’s averaging over 21 minutes per game this season, which would be a career high. He is a first unit hitman and recently teamed up with Chris Tanev on a pair of matches. He brings passion, swagger and leadership.

He can also play on the left or right and showed new offensive abilities last season (eight goals).

The Leafs were looking ahead to next summer and wondering how they would replace McCabe if he left the team as an unrestricted free agent. Extending the term of the deal to five years brought the cap hit back over $5 million, much like the Tanev contract from last summer (six years, $4.5 million cap hit).

In fact, the Tanev contract was a direct comparable in the negotiations.

The Leafs are now tentatively committed to the top four consisting of McCabe, Tanev, Olivier Ekman-Larsson And Morgane Rielly for at least the next three seasons beyond this one (after which Ekman-Larsson’s contract will expire).

And for me, that’s the biggest question: have the Leafs committed to too much older defenders? And was what they got enough to help end a decades-long Stanley Cup drought?

McCabe will be 32 next fall when the new deal begins. Tanev will be 36 (in December 2025), Ekman-Larsson will be 34, and Rielly will be 31 and 32.

In the 2027-28 season, Year 3 of the McCabe deal, McCabe will be 34, Tanev will be 38, Ekman-Larsson will be 36 and Rielly will be 33.

Together, the four defensemen will eat up approximately $20 million in cap space.

How good is this top four today? How good will it be in a year? And a year later?

By extending McCabe, the Leafs are betting that it will be enough not only for this season, but well beyond. They’re betting on McCabe, Tanev and Ekman-Larsson in particular, the three oldest, to continue to perform like the top four defensemen while staying healthy as they move further and further into their 30s.

Decline can come quickly for defensemen in this age group, as the Leafs have found TJ Brodie (33 years old at the time) last season.

The Leafs took a gamble on McCabe (after signing Tanev and Ekman-Larsson last summer) before even seeing if that top four was good enough this season, both health-wise and performance-wise.

And that, to me, seems a little risky and a little rushed.

Through nine games this season, the Leafs rank 27th in expected goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five. That’s not to say the defense — the top of the defense in particular — has performed poorly, but it hasn’t been a runaway success thus far either. (The penalty kill has certainly improved.)

Head coach Craig Berube has already shuffled the top two pairs, placing McCabe on the right side with Tanev.

Wait until the end of the season, the Leafs would say, and McCabe could simply flee for more money elsewhere. And then who would they replace him with? Aaron Ekblad should be a free agent. It would cost him a lot more (more years, more dollars) if he left Florida. Ryan Lindgren, Vladislav Gavrikov, Jakob Chychrun, Jeff Petry, David Savard – the free agent class of 2025 isn’t exactly booming with studs, much less young studs.

That’s fair enough.

GO DEEPER

Mirtle: The Maple Leafs are close to re-signing Jake McCabe. But what is the right number?

Still, I find the logic of who do we replace him with if he leaves a little shaky, especially when it means committing to another older defender.

Just because we can’t foresee a solution today doesn’t mean it won’t present itself in the future, especially with a little creativity.

Defenders like McCabe tend to become available every year at the trade deadline – as McCabe did, in fact, in 2023. Acquiring these defenders means parting with quality assets, so it’s a strike in favor of an agreement like this.

The same goes for the price of free agent defensemen in McCabe’s ballpark. Brandon Montour And Brady Skjei each got expensive seven-year contracts last summer. Brett Pesce And Matt Roy got six years each with higher annual numbers than McCabe got from the Leafs.

Yet couldn’t this deal have waited until after the playoffs? Until the Leafs see if this team can succeed after years of playoff failure, until they see if that top four defense is enough?

General manager Brad Treliving’s biggest priority after last season, his first in Toronto, was overhauling the defense. This process is now virtually complete. The end result is a top four consisting of McCabe, Tanev, Rielly and Ekman-Larsson, with deep plays like Simon Benoit And Jani Hakanpää.

Is this enough? The Leafs are betting yes.

(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)