The Zach Werenski trade return Toronto is willing to pay is turning heads, per Pagnotta

Zach Werenski trade buzz just got specific, and the Maple Leafs are reportedly in the mix with a real price tag attached.

Insider David Pagnotta dropped the detail on Leafs Morning Take Thursday, and it's not a small one.

Pagnotta says Matthew Knies and Ben Danford would've been part of any package built around Werenski.

David Pagnotta: Re Zach Werenski/Maple Leafs rumours: I believe Matthew Knies and Ben Danford would've been part of some type of package.

That's Toronto's top young winger and one of its top prospects, both mentioned in the same breath as a rental defenseman rumor.

Knies just finished a 79-game season with 23 goals, 43 assists and 66 points, carrying a $7,750,000 cap hit.

He's 23. He's already Toronto's most physical top-six forward. And now his name is floating in trade paper.

Danford, meanwhile, is Toronto's first-round pick and one of the more polished defensive prospects in the system. No verified numbers to attach here, just the fact that he's in the conversation at all tells you how far the Leafs were willing to go.

What Werenski's price tag says about Toronto's blue line problem

Werenski carries a $9,583,333 cap hit in Columbus, the kind of number that only makes sense if you're solving a real hole on the back end.

And Toronto has one. The Leafs finished 32-36-14, good for 78 points and 28th overall, closing the year on a seven-game losing streak.

That's not a team quietly asking around. That's a front office staring at a leaky blue line and deciding the fix is worth top prospects.

Columbus finished 40-30-12 with a flat goal differential at zero, a middle-of-the-pack club that could plausibly listen on a rental-type ask if the return is this loaded.

Here's the thing nobody's saying out loud. Trading your best young power forward for a rental defenseman is a gamble most GMs regret within a year.

Knies has term. Werenski, depending on how this shakes out, might not stick around past a rental window. That's not a small detail to gloss over.

None of this is confirmed as a completed trade, it's a package that reportedly would've been on the table. Whether it still is, or whether Columbus even wants it, is the part nobody's answering yet.