Leafs trade Borgman to St. Louis for Jordan Schmaltz

The Leafs appear to be pretty active these days, as they’ve made another move in acquiring Jordan Schmaltz from the St. Louis Blues for Andreas Borgman.

Should we get excited over this?

Well, Schmaltz is a right handed shot as apposed to Borgman’s left handed shot, so that’s one thing. But let’s take a deeper dive than that.

Schmaltz has only played 42 games up to this point, with just five assists. He’s also a year older than Borgman. As for his underlying numbers, Schmaltz has a 46.63% 5v5 CF%, compared to Borgman’s 50.61% in his time with the team last year, and a 47.18% 5v5 xGF%, compared to Borgman’s 50.48%.

As for their microstats, Borgman is a lot more consistent to say the least (although Schmaltz has a very small sample size here). Both played in more sheltered minutes, which again, speaks more to Borgman’s play than Schmaltz.

His most common partner was Jay Bouwmeester, which probably doesn’t help some of his numbers, but it’s followed closely by Vince Dunn, who is much better and still had bad numbers playing with Schmaltz. Even then, Borgman played most of his NHL minutes with Roman Polak, so once again, advantage Borgman.

This is not a good trade at first glance, although it’s not a big trade that will really impact the team either. Maybe Schmaltz emerges as a solid bottom pair, or even top 4 defensemen. It’s not likely, but maybe. However, between Barrie, Schmaltz, and Ceci, we actually have three right shot defensemen. Not good ones, but they’re there.

However, despite the difference in shooting handedness, Schmaltz is older, and a downgrade, on Borgman. Neither has a large sample size in the NHL though, so there’s a chance that changes, but based on what we have to go off of, Borgman was the better player.