Mirtle: Why bolstering the Maple Leafs at the trade deadline won't be easy

So the Toronto Maple Leafs are struggling again.

Three losses in a row, all in regulation.

That makes six regulation losses in their last nine games, a stretch in which theyve scored the sixth-fewest goals in the NHL (2.56 per game).

Its been some ugly hockey, punctuated by Wednesdays somnambulant 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild .

Advertisement It didnt help that with more injuries up front, coach Craig Berube was left throwing huge minutes to the likes of Pontus Holmberg (19:31, a career high by nearly two minutes) and Max Domi (19:06), who have a combined five goals this season.

But if you look at the Leafs lineup without John Tavares and Matthew Knies , boy, there are not a lot of options if the remaining big guns go quiet.

Injuries have definitely been a factor.

I went digging into the salary lost to injury numbers during this game, and the Leafs have now lost more than $6 million in cap space to injured reserve to forwards alone.

Thats first in the NHL, if you dont count the three players in Colorado, San Jose and Washington who have missed the entire season and appear likely to retire due to injury.

(We wish Gabriel Landeskog , Logan Couture and T.J.

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By my count, they've played more than 20 games (out of 51) missing at least five players, most of whom have been forwards.

And in some cases, it's been their most high-impact forwards, with Auston Matthews missing 15 games and not looking like himself in a lot of others.

On the season, the Leafs are down to 3.04 goals per game, a drop of 0.59 from last season.

That's the biggest year-over-year drop-off in the NHL right now, ahead of even the struggling Vancouver Canucks and Nashville Predators .

They've lost, in other words, a ton of goals, going from one of the truly elite offensive teams to basically dead average.

It hasn't been all injuries.

The power play has been consistently awful, which has led to some of their recent losses .

Even when fully healthy, the Leafs haven't been as dangerous, and their scoring chance generation year over year has slipped to downright ordinary for the first time in the Matthews era.

Advertisement Just as troubling, though, has been their defensive play.

The Leafs have been caught napping often during this mini-slide, including Morgan Rielly and Holmberg teaming up to gift Minnesota its first goal Wednesday.

After a strong start through the first 20 games , Toronto's defensive metrics have continued to slide the wrong way.

The Leafs sit at 23rd in expected goals against and 19th in high-danger chances against on the season.

Over the past nine games, they're down to 22nd in the latter category, allowing nearly 12 high-danger chances per 60 minutes played.

Keeping the front of the net clear is supposed to be a huge part of their identity under Berube, and it hasn't been there consistently for some time now.

And, again, that is not all on injuries.

Which brings me to the trade deadline.

After 51 games, it's safe to say we have a good handle on what the Leafs are and what their needs are.

Even after this slide, they have the eighth-best record in the league, and the playoffs are close to a lock.

The Atlantic Division is as weak as it's been in years, and despite its inconsistency, Toronto still has as good of a chance at winning it for the first time as anyone.

But the holes in the lineup are frequently glaring.

We've known the Leafs need another centre right from the preseason puck drop, a need that's even more pressing now that the coach has come to the (understandable) conclusion that Domi can no longer play down the middle.

Just adding a dependable third-line pivot, however, doesn't feel like it'll be enough.

The blue line has been porous for long stretches, and though Rielly is a well-documented part of the problem , the third-pair crew of Simon Benoit , Conor Timmins and Philippe Myers has also been getting lit up in limited, sheltered minutes.

You layer on top the team's scoring issues, and it feels like the best-case scenario for the trade deadline would be fulfilling a three-part shopping list: No.

1: A 3C who can add offence No.

2: A right-shot defenceman to help Rielly No.

3: More secondary scoring Perhaps Calle Jarnkrok , who's been out all season but has begun to skate in practice, can solve for No.

3, although missing more than four months will certainly slow him down.

(He also has only five goals in 93 career playoff games, including one in 18 as a Leaf, for what that's worth.) The bigger problem is those first two holes feel incredibly difficult for Toronto to fill.

The deadline is shaping up to be a seller's market in a big way, with few teams throwing in the towel on the playoff chase and hardly any marquee names to serve as quality rentals.

I look at the trade lists and boards out there right now, and it feels unlikely many of the big names will be dealt.

Unless more teams fall out of the postseason race, this could be one of the weaker deadlines we've had in recent years save for, perhaps, some fireworks out of Vancouver.

Advertisement That lack of available talent is going to put pressure on the most in-demand assets centres and right-shot defencemen, as per the norm and force contenders to give up first-round picks or solid prospects for players who aren't difference-makers.

All of this is compounded by the fact the Leafs don't have a ton of those assets to play with.

Their pick and prospect pool is bone-dry, and I suspect general manager Brad Treliving will be wary of moving the 2026 first-round pick, Easton Cowan or Fraser Minten for a temporary solution.

He'll probably be bringing a knife to a gunfight on March 7.

(It might even be a spoon .) And it's going to take some creativity to fill at least two of his three roster holes given those limitations.

Maybe I'm misreading the market and the Leafs' intentions.

Maybe the front office has bigger plans and can pull off something beyond adding some depth pieces for mid-round draft picks, as it did last year with Ilya Lyubushkin , Joel Edmundson and Connor Dewar .

But the deck is stacked against them here, at least in terms of something significant from outside coming to the rescue.

To go deep, they'll probably need some answers from within, in the sense that they need players to whom they're paying considerable money to deliver on their cap hits.

That means more than a 35-point pace and poor defensive play from Rielly.

It means more than a five-goal, 30-point season for Domi, who landed a four-year deal with a no-trade clause in the summer primarily for his offensive punch.

It means something, anything, from the depth forwards over the next 11 games before the deadline or some of them will get dumped on the waiver wire to clear cap space.

It means more than a point per game for $11.5 million man William Nylander and for the other members of the core four to step up consistently when key players are out of the lineup.

Advertisement And it means more solutions from the coaching staff than running out the same special teams schemes and line combinations night after night.

The Leafs are not in an awful situation.

They have two very good goaltenders, two excellent defencemen and some high-end offensive talent with something to prove.

And their division and conference are as wide open as I can remember them being this deep into a season.

But I don't see a magic-bullet trade in the next five weeks that's going to change the equation for this roster.

They might have to find a way to do it themselves.

(Top photo of Mitch Marner: Dan Hamilton / Imagn Images).

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