Insider Confirms Full Details of Brandon Carlo Trade; Leafs Part With Multiple Big Assets

Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving pulled off a massive, last-minute trade deadline deal with the Boston Bruins,.acquiring 28-year-old defenseman Brandon Carlo on Friday.

After finally landing an upgrade at centre in Scott Laughton earlier in the day, the deal Treliving made for Carlo involved a lot of moving parts.

With two years left after this season, and a $4.1M cap hit, the Leafs had to clear cap space and get retention from the Bruins in order to make the deal work. To accomplish this, the Leafs sent Conor Timmins and Connor Dewar to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for a late-round draft pick which cleared $2.28M in cap space.

In addition to clearing $2.28M in cap space by trading Dewar and Timmins, the Bruins are also retaining 15 percent of Carlo's contract, bringing his cap hit down to a very reasonable $3.485M for the next two seasons.

To acquire Carlo the Leafs had to part with the highly sought-after Fraser Minten and a first-round pick. Thankfully, they managed to hold onto both Easton Cowan and Ben Danford, which certainly indicates that the organization holds both players in high regard.

The Leafs may not have made the blockbuster splash up front that many fans had hoped for, but they finally got a stable partner for Morgan Rielly on the blueline that he can play with for the next few seasons. It's hard to be mad at that.