Maple Leafs to trade one of Max Domi, Nick Robertson, and Matias Maccelli, and they're bound to screw it up

The locker room is completely fractured following a brutal string of losses. The on-ice product is unwatchable, and the tension surrounding the franchise is palpable.

Wholesale change is coming to Toronto before the draft. James Mirtle of The Athletic recently confirmed the worst-kept secret in the hockey world.

Berube is effectively a dead man walking behind that bench. His physical, demanding system simply does not fit the skill set of this current roster.

He spent the entire weekend publicly torching his own players after dropping games to Carolina and Ottawa. Throwing your goaltender under the bus is always a desperate move.

A massive front office overhaul is the next logical step for this organization. The incoming general manager will inherit an absolute mess of a salary cap situation.

The roster construction remains deeply flawed from top to bottom. The middle of the forward group is a massive logjam of identical, pass-first players who avoid the dirty areas.

Maccelli is the most fascinating wild card in this entire equation. He arrived from Utah with high expectations but has delivered wildly inconsistent offensive output.

The 25-year-old Finnish winger currently carries a $3.425 million cap hit. He is a pending restricted free agent this summer, making his next contract a highly debated topic.

Through 60 games in a Leafs sweater, he has posted 14 goals and 35 points. But those decent depth numbers do not solve the core identity issue.

Mirtle made a blunt observation about the bottom six dynamics. The Leafs simply cannot afford to bring back Maccelli, Max Domi, and Nick Robertson together next season.

They are entirely redundant assets on a team desperate for heavy forecheckers. You cannot build a winning playoff lineup with three guys who play the exact same perimeter game.

Domi has term left on his $15 million deal, making him difficult to move. Robertson is a perennial trade chip who never quite secured a permanent role.

That leaves Maccelli as the odd man out. A qualifying offer to retain his rights would cost the team roughly $4.1 million against the cap.

A new regime might look at that steep price tag and walk away completely. Toronto is about to experience a very ruthless summer.

However, Maccelli has by far the best analytics of the three, and is also the second youngest behind Robertson. With the Maple Leafs needing youth, the right decision is likely Domi - but making the right decisions have proven difficult for this regime.

Also read on House Of Hockey :
Predators on the verge of making the same mistake that ruined the Leafs for a generation