Cal Clutterbuck On The Devon Toews Trade — And The Domino Effect That Followed
Why did the Islanders trade Devon Toews? Cal Clutterbuck offers insight, and I break down the domino effect that move created.
Every general manager makes mistakes. For the Islanders, one of Lou Lamoriello’s biggest came on October 12, 2020, when he traded 26-year-old defenseman Devon Toews to the Colorado Avalanche for two second-round picks.
The Islanders had just lost in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, Toews had struggled, and he’d filed for arbitration. But moving a puck-moving defenseman for such a light return stunned fans. Four years later, Toews is a Cup-winning, top-pairing defenseman next to Cale Makar, while the Islanders have struggled to fill the void he left behind.
Cal Clutterbuck recently explained on Spittin’ Chiclets that at the time, New York already had Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech as one of the NHL’s best shutdown pairings.
The logic made sense then, but hindsight makes it look worse — especially since Pulock and Pelech have battled injuries and regression ever since the playoff run in 2021, a year after the Toews trade.
The pandemic also shaped the move. The flat cap forced teams to dump salary: Ryan Murray went for a fifth-rounder, Nate Schmidt for a third, Marc Staal for future considerations. Had the cap risen, the Islanders might have squeezed Toews in — or at least gotten a first-round pick for him.
The Toews trade also set off a chain of ripple effects. The Islanders used the second-rounders from Colorado to dump Andrew Ladd’s contract on Arizona — a necessary move to stay cap compliant. Without Toews, they also dealt Nick Leddy to Detroit ahead of the 2021 Expansion Draft. The Islanders needed cap space to sign RFAs Anthony Beauvillier, Adam Pelech, and Ilya Sorokin, so that move cleared them of $5.5 million and allowed them not to lose Leddy for nothing.
If Toews had stayed, it likely would have meant losing Scott Mayfield to Seattle instead — that would have been a move that may have made more sense but at that point in time, Mayfield was much cheaper and played a very critical role for the team.
To replace the missing offense after Anders Lee’s ACL tear in 2021, the Islanders traded for Kyle Palmieri. While underwhelming in the regular season, Palmieri came alive in the playoffs with seven goals in 19 games, helping the Islanders reach Game 7 of the Conference Final. If Toews had been retained, that deal probably wouldn’t have happened.
What’s certain is that without Toews or Leddy, the Islanders lacked an actual puck mover for years until they added Mike Reilly in 2023 and both Tony DeAngelo and Adam Boqvist this past season.
Now the team hopes No. 1 pick Matthew Schaefer can finally grow into that cornerstone defenseman. And with new GM Mathieu Darche managing the cap more aggressively than Lamoriello, the hope is that history doesn’t repeat itself.
