Just when it appeared that reality had set in for the Toronto Maple Leafs, they strung together three wins in a row before the NHL’s Olympic break to keep their faint playoff hopes alive. The Maple Leafs woke up Wednesday with a 6.1 per cent chance of making the playoffs.

Before the streak began, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported over the weekend that the Maple Leafs had started gauging the value of their players on the trade market. The Maple Leafs player reportedly generating the most interest is 29-year-old forward Bobby McMann, whose $1.35 million cap hit “could be one of the most sought-after wingers at the deadline,” according to Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos.

“I like it here (with Toronto),” McMann told Sportsnet earlier this week. “I wouldn’t necessarily want to go anywhere. I want to run with these guys. I want to make a push here. I can’t really control what happens outside of that. I’ll just have to deal with it then.”

McMann, who has 19 goals and 32 points in 56 games this season, offers a tantalizing combination of size (6-foot-2, 217 pounds) and speed. His maximum skating speed of 24.25 MPH is the fourth fastest recorded by the NHL this season, and his 185 bursts over 20 MPH rank in the 98th percentile.

Besides his speed, McMann makes an impact by being a nuisance in the offensive zone. He is 47th out of 339 forwards (minimum 500 minutes played) in OZ puck-battle wins and 64th in OZ defensive plays per 20 minutes.

Early in the third period of the Maple Leafs’ 5-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, McMann blocked a pass off an offensive-zone faceoff that led to a scoring chance for linemate Max Domi.

“That’s skating and trying to be physical and being disruptive and being hard to play against,” McMann told The Athletic at the start of the season. “If I’m doing that and competing hard, I’m super happy with my game whether I score or not, because that’s me doing my 100 percent effort.”

Individually, McMann is not an offensive driver, but he has shown he can complement a team’s top centre. McMann has flanked Auston Matthews at various points throughout the season, and Toronto has outscored opponents 22-20 at even strength when they have shared the ice. The Maple Leafs have generated 50.9 per cent of the expected goals at even strength during McMann and Matthews’ shared minutes.

“He’s so explosive,” Matthews told reporters last month. “Once he gets a step, he’s hard to pick up. … He just continues to take steps in his game.”

On Tuesday, McMann scored an empty-netter and led the Maple Leafs with five shots on net in their win against the Oilers. Fifteen of McMann’s 19 goals have come in the slot, but he is not a high-volume shooter from that area of the ice. Only 46.5 per cent of his shot attempts this season have come from the slot.

In terms of getting bang for your buck, McMann is one of the most productive forwards in the league at $42,000 per point, according to PuckPedia. That places him behind only Minnesota’s Marcus Johansson ($22,000 per point) among the 128 forwards on standard contracts with at least 30 points this season.

For that reason, the cap-strapped Oilers have frequently been mentioned as a suitor for McMann. The Oilers need more secondary scoring up front, as well as size and speed on their third line. McMann would be the fifth-highest scoring forward on the Oilers behind Connor McDavid (95 points), Leon Draisaitl (78), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (44) and Zach Hyman (36).

Kypreos reported that McMann “could be looking for about $5 million AAV” on his next contract. There seems to be enough interest in McMann for the Maple Leafs to extract a lot of value from trading him, which presents an interesting dilemma for general manager Brad Treliving.

“I think there’d be a lot of interest in McMann,” Friedman told The FAN Hockey Show on Tuesday. “If they decide to go this route instead of re-signing him, he’s the most valuable trade chip they have.”