Prior to the trade deadline, Kyle Dubas had expressed his desire to acquire a player or players who were not just a rental. He felt more comfortable giving up assets for players who could be with the Maple Leafs beyond this season.

As it was, both Mark Giordano and Colin Blackwell – the players Dubas picked up from the Seattle Kraken – are both on expiring contracts and could be considered to be rentals. However, if we look a little deeper, we can see where both players could easily be Maple Leafs beyond this season.

Mark Giordano Has Always Been a Productive Offensive Player

Mark Giordano is 38 years old, a Toronto native, and grew up a Maple Leafs’ fan. He recently played his one-thousandth game in the NHL. Despite his age, he’s still playing the game at a high level.

If we look at his recent production, he scored 74 points during the 2018-19 season when he won the Norris Trophy. At the age of 36, that was indeed an exceptional season. However, it was more of an outlier for Giordano.  

His previous best offensive season was 2015-16 when he scored 56 points. If we look at his offensive production for the two seasons prior to 2018-19 and the three seasons after, his point-per-game pace each season was for 2016-17 (0.48), 2017-18 (0.46), 2019-20 (0.52), 2020-21 (0.46), and 2021-22 (0.42.). He hasn’t lost a step offensively.

It makes sense that there would be some degradation to his game due to his age and the mileage on his body. The Calgary Flames obviously thought so when they failed to protect him in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft.