The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Dakota Joshua from the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday for a 2028 fourth-round pick, continuing to reshape their bottom-six forward group.

 

Joshua spent the last three seasons in Vancouver, putting together a career-best 18 goals and 32 points in 63 games during the 2023-24 campaign. He missed training camp and the start of last season after having a cancerous tumour removed from his testicle and wound up scoring seven goals and 14 points in 57 games after rejoining the Vancouver lineup in mid-November.

“Dakota went through a lot last season before the year even started and we were very impressed in how he handled such a difficult off-ice situation,” said Canucks GM Patrik Allvin. “Once healthy, he tried hard to help the team in many ways, and we want to wish him the best moving forward in Toronto.”

With the Canucks in need of salary cap flexibility ahead of further moves this summer, they opted to ship out Joshua’s $3.25 million cap hit.

His contract has three years remaining.

What it means for the Maple Leafs

Joshua is a big, competitive winger who joins fellow newcomer Nicolas Roy in Toronto. Roy was acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights in the Mitch Marner sign-and-trade on June 30. The Leafs also shipped out veteran depth forward Ryan Reaves to San Jose for defenseman Henry Thrun last week.

Not only was Joshua originally a Maple Leafs draft pick — 128th overall in 2014 — but he spent time playing under current Toronto head coach Craig Berube during parts of two seasons with the St. Louis Blues.

The move increases the likelihood of the Leafs trading away at least one of their rostered forwards before next season. The team will have 15 NHL-level players under contract at that position once it reaches a deal with RFA Nick Robertson, who has a salary arbitration hearing scheduled later this month. — Chris Johnston, senior NHL writer

What it means for the Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks have been actively exploring their options to shed salary-cap space for the past couple of weeks, and Thursday were able to complete a trade that did just that, sending big winger Joshua to the Maple Leafs in exchange for a 2028 fourth-round pick.

Shedding Joshua’s remaining three years at a $3.25 million cap hit leaves Vancouver with about $4 million in cap room to utilize over the balance of this offseason, or into the upcoming campaign.

As it was before July 1 and remains, Vancouver’s priority with that cap space is to upgrade down the middle of its forward group.

There are some options who could help at center in a pinch on the open market — The Athletic’s Rick Dhaliwal has reported there have been talks between Vancouver and unrestricted free agent Jack Roslovic — but there isn’t anybody Vancouver brass would view as the answer to their big, looming center-ice question.

So while this move was, in part, motivated by the club’s desire to re-engage some of the value free agents who have fallen through the cracks in unrestricted free agency, the club was also keen to open up some cap flexibility for flexibility’s sake.

Joshua wasn’t a player the Canucks wanted to move, but the deal was motivated by Vancouver’s desire to create the means to upgrade at center moreso than it was about anything else. If an opportunity becomes available to land a center later this summer or early next season, the club wants to position itself to pounce on it. There’s a feeling that this deal accomplishes just that.

With Joshua now off Vancouver’s books, the club isn’t as likely to consider moving Teddy Blueger — although if an opportunity presents itself, in which the club requires more cap space, he would be the next domino to fall — and will turn it’s attention back to addressing the centre ice position, either on the trade or bargain bin midsummer free agent market. — Thomas Drance, senior Canucks writer

(Photo: Bob Frid / Imagn Images)