How the Blue Jackets, Leafs pulled off the Kirill Marchenko trade at the last possible second

People are still amazed that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets came together right before the start of the 2026-27 regular season and made a deal that might go down as one of the biggest trades of the year.

On the eve of the campaign, the Maple Leafs acquired forward Kirill Marchenko and goaltender Elvis Merzlikins from the Blue Jackets, with Columbus receiving forwards Matthew Knies and Steven Lorentz, as well as a 2027 draft pick, in return. It certainly isn’t the kind of transaction you see in September.

There were certainly several storylines within the trade. It was clear that Marchenko wanted out of Columbus, and Knies’ name kept coming up in trade talks over the summer. Everything came to a head on Monday.

On Thursday’s edition of Leafs Morning Take, Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell joined David Pagnotta and Nick Alberga to explain how the Marchenko trade went down.

Don Waddell: “You probably go back two, three weeks. John (Chayka) was very upfront that he was interested in the player. I told him, as I told multiple teams that we’re not going through a rebuild. We don’t want draft picks. Not that we can’t supplement, but draft picks and prospects – we need to make a trade, a hockey trade.

“We came close the last few years just knocking on the doorstep of making the playoffs. We didn’t want to take a step backwards. So as I talked to teams, there just wasn’t those type of players out there.

“And then John mentioned potentially Knies. And, of course, we did our homework on it. He’s a young player that’s got cost certainty, which is important moving forward.

“And as we continued to talk, I really started to get real serious Sunday. We talked a few times on Sunday and then picked it back up Monday. And to be honest, I went all day Monday, and I thought at 4:30 that the deal wasn’t going to happen because we were still doing some pieces around it.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the clock. It was 4:59 and 40 seconds that we got the deal done. Right there. And we had 20 seconds to get our rostered. So, yeah, it was an interesting day for sure.”

You can watch the full episode here…