BUFFALO, N.Y. — Brandon Carlo has been traded.
And with that, all remnants of the hindsight disaster that was the Toronto Maple Leafs 2025 trade deadline have been put to rest.
Cashed in for futures.
Try again.
On a mission to reshape, speed up, and inject offence into his blueline, Maple Leafs general manager John Chayka dealt Carlo, 29, to the St. Louis Blues Saturday in exchange for two third-round picks at the draft in Buffalo.
Chayka then used those picks to select 18-year-olds Zach Olsen (No. 73 overall) and Mans Gudmundsson (No. 76).
Calgary native Olsen is a six-foot-one, 202-pound right winger with a wicked wrist shot who scored 18 goals and 34 points in 57 games in his third season with the Saskatoon Blades.
Gudmundsson is a right-shot, playmaking Swedish defenceman who made the jump from Farjestad's junior program to its pro team at the end of this past season.
As the Maple Leafs tumbled out of contention in 2025-26, they have been trying to restock their barren cupboards — a mandate that also included dealing away their other ’25 deadline acquisition, Scott Laughton, to the L.A. Kings for a second-round pick (defenceman Alexander Bilecki).
Carlo had been shopped around in-season by former GM Brad Treliving, to no avail.
“I love it here. I want to stay,” Carlo said then, in response to the trade rumours.
The generous package Treliving surrendered to Boston to originally acquire Carlo — young centre Fraser Minten, 2026’s first-round (now bumped to 2028, unprotected), and 2025’s fourth-round pick (Vashek Blanar) — hung over the player like a dark cloud in Toronto.
“If you’re gonna be in the NHL environment, there’s gonna be a lot of things you need to tune out throughout your career,” Carlo said. “Just put it in the category with most of those things and continue forward.”
While a serviceable penalty killer and minute-muncher (he averaged 19:22 in 2025-26 despite battling a foot injury), Carlo lacks the puck-moving and offensive abilities Chayka is seeking.
He recorded just 10 points and zero goals in 88 games for the Leafs, including playoffs. That is the most games played by a skater without scoring a goal in franchise history.
Carlo is one of the nicest, genuine men you’ll meet in this game. He’s a fearless shot blocker and commits to defending. But one of the reasons Boston and now Toronto were willing to move him is that he doesn’t play as mean as his six-foot-five, 227-pound frame might suggest.
Carlo had two tough moments on home ice this past season. He failed to stick up for goalie Anthony Stolarz in October when Mason Marchment crashed into his crease. And he turned the other cheek when Radko Gudas ended captain Auston Matthews’ season with a dangerous knee-on-knee in March.
“Initially, I didn’t really understand what was going on, and then afterwards, once you see the hit, you just feel terrible with the way that the situation all played out,” Carlo told Sportsnet.ca after the incident.
“You learn from that mistake. Regardless if you see what happens with the whole situation or not, if you see your captain on the ice, you need to go in there and make it known that that's not OK. So, definitely tough there. I thought about it a lot, for sure. Hate that that happened and didn’t react accordingly.”
With Chayka’s investment in top-pair righty Darren Raddysh and shutdown man Chris Tanev rehabbing on the ice and on track for training camp, Carlo had slipped to third on the right-side depth chart.
Lefties Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jake McCabe, and the newly acquired Emil Andrae all have experience playing their off side as well.
Chayka has also explored trading Morgan Rielly, who has submitted a list of four Western Conference teams to which he’d entertain waiving his no-move protection.
The GM has been active in remodelling his roster, so expect more moves next week.
In St. Louis, Carlo should see second-pair minutes behind righty Colton Parayko. And if the Blues aren’t in the hunt by the trade deadline, the cap-friendly Carlo ($3.49 million) could be flipped as a rental to a contender seeking depth.
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