{"id":913347,"date":"2026-09-28T22:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913347\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T22:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:52:17","slug":"pay-to-play-hockey-world-reacts-to-maple-leafs-blue-jackets-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913347\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Pay to play&#8217;: Hockey world reacts to Maple Leafs-Blue Jackets trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forward\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/kirill-marchenko\/7710571c-737e-49f4-846f-3719108832a9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kirill Marchenko<\/a>\u00a0was acquired by the Maple Leafs from the Blue Jackets for a package that most notably includes\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/matthew-knies\/f1e0c013-b81d-4eb9-8d50-1944850af695\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Knies<\/a>, the teams announced on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The trade sees both headlining players leaving the only NHL clubs they have ever known.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto also received forward Miles Wood and goaltender Elvis Merzlikins (with some salary retained), while forward Steven Lorentz, defenceman Emil Andrae and a second-round pick additionally head to Columbus. <\/p>\n<p>Columbus was forced to find a trade partner for Marchenko after he previously indicated he did not intend to re-sign with the team when his contract expired next summer. <\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old signed a six-year contract extension with the Maple Leafs as part of Monday&#8217;s deal, carrying a $12.5 million AAV.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Knies, 23, had been the subject of trade rumours and speculation about his future since the trade deadline this past March, despite signing a six-year deal with a $7.75 million AAV last off-season.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a look at some of the reactions to the trade on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forward\u00a0Kirill Marchenko\u00a0was acquired by the Maple Leafs from the Blue Jackets for a package that most notably includes\u00a0Matthew&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-913347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}