O'Reilly, Acciari go to Maple Leafs in 3-way trade with Blues, Wild

Ryan O'Reilly
and
Noel Acciari
were traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday.

Toronto acquired the centers from the St. Louis Blues in a three-team trade that also included the Minnesota Wild.
O'Reilly and Acciari were in the lineup when the Maple Leafs hosted the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.
The Blues received the rights to forward prospect
Josh Pillar
from the Wild for O'Reilly, then traded him and Acciari to the Maple Leafs for Toronto's first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, the Ottawa Senators' third-round pick this year, Toronto's second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, and forwards
Mikhail Abramov
and
Adam Gaudette
.
Minnesota received Toronto's fourth-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.
RELATED: [NHL Trade Tracker]
O'Reilly has 19 points (12 goals, seven assists) in 40 games this season. The 32-year-old forward is in the final year of seven-year contract he signed with the Buffalo Sabres on July 3, 2015, and can become an unrestricted free agent after the season.
He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs when he had 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 26 games to help St. Louis defeat the Boston Bruins in seven games in the 2019 Cup Final.
"There are certain players who you can say seem like a playoff guy and there's certain guys who you can say are playoff guys," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said Saturday. "I think he's done more than enough in his time in the playoffs, not just the year he wins the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe, but you look at it and he is one of the rare guys who has a higher points per game in the playoffs (0.88) than in the regular season (0.71) so there's a lot that he brings on both sides of the puck.
"He's a Selke Trophy winner (best defensive forward in NHL, 2018-19) and highly respected defensively so I think talking about hard to play against, that's a big part of it he doesn't give you much on defense and can hurt you on offense. He's good on face-offs and he's a smart player, just a veteran guy who can do a lot of things."
The moves come ahead of the NHL Trade Deadline on March 3. Toronto (33-14-8) is in second place in the Atlantic Division, one point ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"O'Reilly's pedigree speaks for itself," Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas said, "but his defensive prowess, his playoff performance, what he brings for our center position and what he will bring to our team on and off the ice, we thought was vital to try to accomplish what we are about to try to accomplish given the level of competition we are going to face.
"Noel Acciari is a player we've talked about internally for a long time. He's been in our division every year that we've all been here (with the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers) except for this season when he signed in St. Louis. Just feel he's a right-handed centerman who can play center, can play wing, a high-end competitor, physical, but can also chip in and score with strong finish around the net and off the rush."
Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly said such a trade sends a positive message to him and his teammates.
"It's a move that as players, we look at it and it kind of tells us where we're at," Rielly said. "It puts everything into perspective in terms of what we are trying to accomplish and the belief in the team that the organization has and where we are trying to go and adding players that can help is a way to tell the players that we are in it, there's belief and what we are trying to do is great.
"It's going to take a lot of hard work but when you add players like that, it's both good for the team on the ice and good for the group to tell people where we're at and what we are trying to do."
Selected by the Colorado Avalanche in the second round (No. 33) of the 2009 NHL Draft, O'Reilly has 691 points (252 goals, 439 assists) in 978 regular-season games with the Blues, Sabres and Avalanche, and 56 points (22 goals, 34 assists) in 64 playoff games.
Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said the experience of O'Reilly, who was Blues captain for three seasons, will be invalauable.
"I don't think you can ever have enough (leaders)," Tavares said. "It's great for me just because as I've always said, just because you are the captain doesn't mean you have all the answers and you need different people to lead in different ways and there's opportunity for me to learn and grow and absorb what has made him very successful in being a captain. It obviously will just set another great example in our locker room."
Acciari has 18 points (10 goals, eight assists) in 54 games this season. The 31-year-old forward has 95 points (55 goals, 40 assists) in 361 regular-season games with the Blues, Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins, and seven points (four goals, three assists) in 54 playoff games. Like O'Reilly, Acciari can become an unrestricted free agent after this season.
"Acciari is a guy when you hear the excitement from (our players), that speaks to how much they respect his game and how hard he is to play against," Keefe said, "and the experience he has in the playoffs as well and going deep in the playoffs, being part of battles and playing on good teams. Both guys definitely fit that bill of being hard to play against, valuable teammates. The messages I've been getting from people all around the League who have experience with them have been super positive and for all those reasons, you're just extremely excited."
Keefe said the trade will give Toronto plenty of roster flexibility for the stretch run and into the playoffs.
"Both were adamant about playing tonight ... and excited to get right in so for that reason, we will get them right involved," Keefe said. "What's most exciting for me on the coaching side, which is why it was difficult to sleep, is you just get so many options now with such an abundance of depth at center.
"We can do lots of different things, there's people we can move who play center and wing including the guys we acquired. So I suspect between now and the end of the regular season, we will try a number of different things to get a feel for what is our best mix and potential adjustments and different looks depending on what the game calls for."
Dubas said there is risk of trading for two players on expiring contracts, but was happy not to have included any prospects in the deal.
"I don't often like to part with first-round picks for players who aren't under contract but we've done it twice now," he said. "I just felt the team had earned it and we had to put our team in the best position and I'd rather have dealt picks then deal from our reserve of prospects, mostly because we know the prospects and what they are about, we are with them every day.
"The picks are like the mystery box; you can have the mystery box or you can have the prospects, so we kept our guys and we will roll from there."
St. Louis (26-25-3) has won three in a row but trails Minnesota (29-21-5) by eight points for the second wild card in the Western Conference. The Blues traded forward Vladimir Tarasenko and defenseman Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers on Feb. 9 for forward Sammy Blais, defenseman prospect
Hunter Skinner
, a conditional first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft and a fourth-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
"I think that the equity in the NHL now is to have first-round picks, we now have three, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. "I wish I had a crystal ball where I could tell everyone how this is going to work out, but I don't. ... One thing that I do know we're going to do is if we move picks, players, it's not going to be for one-year players. We need to retrench with players 25, 26 or under that have term on their contracts so they can grow with that next core of players that we have."
Pillar, 21, was a fourth-round pick (No. 127) by the Wild at the 2021 NHL Draft. He has 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 13 games for Saskatoon of the Western Hockey League this season.
Abramov, 21, was a fourth-round pick by the Maple Leafs (No. 115) at the 2019 NHL Draft. He has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in 34 games for Toronto of the American Hockey League this season.
Gaudette, 26, has 34 points (20 goals, 14 assists) in 40 games for Toronto of the AHL this season. He has 70 points (27 goals, 43 assists) in 218 NHL regular-season games with the Vancouver Canucks, Chicago Blackhawks and Ottawa Senators. He does not have a point in 10 playoff games.
Armstrong said it was difficult to trade Tarasenko and O'Reilly, who each was a big contributor to St. Louis' Stanley Cup victory.
"It was a very difficult call for me," he said, "because they took me on a hell of a ride, and he (O'Reilly) took me on a hell of a ride. I enjoyed every second of it, but in this business, this is the business I chose to be in where difficult decisions have to be made."
NHL.com independent correspondents Dave McCarthy and Lou Korac contributed to this report