Maple Leafs Had Penguins’ Star Wingers on Their Radar Last Offseason

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins are in the exact opposite positions everyone expected them to be coming into the 2025–26 season.

---

Toronto, despite losing Mitch Marner, still had playoff and even Stanley Cup aspirations, while Pittsburgh was viewed as one of the few sellers around the league and projected to be in the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes. Seven months later, the two teams have flipped completely, with the Maple Leafs now poised for a top-five pick in the draft and the Penguins back in the postseason for the first time since 2021–22.

It’s been a wild turn of events, and to make matters even more interesting, a recent report from The Athletic suggests that Toronto was actually pursuing star wingers Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust as buyers on the trade market last summer.

“On his own for the first time in Toronto without Shanahan and leaning more on trusted advisors such as assistant GM Derek Clancey, Treliving believed he had rounded out the forward group without the 102-point man and altered the “DNA” of the team in the process. But his offseason additions were proving underwhelming — not like other offseason trade targets, including Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, might have been… “We beat down every door,” one front-office source said of a summer where the NHL’s trade market never really heated up,”

The 32-year-old Rakell tallied 48 points (24 goals, 24 assists) in 60 games this season, while Rust, 33, matched a career-high with 65 points (29 goals, 36 assists) in 72 games.

Whether having acquired one of Rakell or Rust would have made the difference for the Maple Leafs is up for debate, though there’s no doubt they could have used one of them in a top-six that felt incomplete from start to finish this season. Toronto’s lack of draft capital to meet Kyle Dubas’ asking price likely played a role in a deal never coming to fruition.

It does, however, remain possible that they could revisit those conversations this offseason, because even though Pittsburgh is back in the playoff picture, Dubas is not going to stray from his long-term vision.

Next: Brady Tkachuk Opens Up About One of the Scariest Moments of His Career