Until the night of April 30, 2016, the biggest need of the Toronto Maple Leafs — the one that consumed sports talk radio, bubbled around hopefuls like Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak, and left the franchise yearning for the days of Mats Sundin — was a No. 1 centre.



That all changed when the numbers 6, 8, 5, and 13 were plucked in the NHL draft lottery and the Leafs won the right to select Auston Matthews first overall that June.



Now, the white whale is a top-pair, right-shooting defenceman to play with Morgan Rielly.



Outside of a plunge into another thin free agent pool, the only way GM Kyle Dubas nets that big fish is by trade. And while the Leafs aren’t overflowing with assets to deal, there’s enough cooking internally to make it happen.



But which players have the most value?



That’s the exercise we’ll tackle here, with some stipulations:



No core players. Which means you won’t find any of the...