Toronto Maple Leafs Off Season Thoughts

The Toronto Maple Leafs have had an interesting off-season so far.

The Expansion Draft, Free Agency, the Entry Draft and Trade Rumours…….the Toronto Maple Leafs off-season has been anything but quiet so far. Overall I’d say it’s been moderately successful, although I don’t think it can be fully judged until we see how it all comes together in October.

Expansion Draft: Toronto Maple Leafs

The Expansion Draft did not produce near the level of league activity I (and I think everyone else) thought it would. I expected the Leafs to try and address some of their needs through other teams E-Draft Troubles, but that did not materialize, for whatever reason.

The Leafs lost Brandon Leipsic and despite a great depth at the winger position, I do not think the Leafs should have let him go. He’s NHL ready, he’s had great success in the AHL and the Leafs don’t have a lot of guys with his grit or style.

I am not saying it’s a great loss or anything, and who knows, maybe they tried to retain him but were unable. I was a Leipsic fan and to lose him when Matt Martin – who I doubt very much would have been selected – was protected is just inexcusably bad asset management.

Entry Draft

The NHL Entry Draft is always fun if you’re team is picking high or they make a lot of trades. It usually isn’t fun when you’re team is picking 17th, because it’s highly unlikely you don’t know anything about who they’re picking.

And yet, none of that was true this year.

The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Swedish defenseman Timothy Liljegren, a player who was ranked second overall going into his draft year. He dropped due to his contraction of mono and subsequent decline in play. The draft was filled with tension as Leafs fans started getting their hopes up around the tenth overall pick.

As team after team passed on Liljegren, the player many fans hoped the team would tank just one more year for actually ended up being available.

A crazy night for the Toronto Maple Leafs who, after years of terrible draft luck, seem to finally have had some over the last several years.

This was a more successful night than the Leafs had any right to hope for.

Free Agency:

The Leafs added veteran leadership, while blowing most of their cap room and getting only marginally better. You can’t really measure what vets bring until the end of the season and you compare how they did with them to how they did without them.

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Certainly it doesn’t hurt to have some guys of all different ages on the team, and so it’s hard to complain about what they did, at least until we know how the team will deploy the players.

If they expect Ron Hainsey to be a top-four defenseman and not an occasionally healthy scratch #6/7, then I think they and their fans will be very disappointed.

Same goes for Dominic Moore. If he’s your every day fourth-line Centre, then I think there were definitely better options available. If he’s here to provide depth and move in and out of the lineup while providing flexibility, then sure, he’s fine.

As for Marleau, I’m a fan of the move. The cap hit is insane and really hard to defend. You do, however, get a pretty effective 5v5 player who skates like the wind and is a 1st ballot Hall of Famer. Can’t complain about adding one of the best players of all time to your roster, don’t care how old he is.

Trades:

So far, the Leafs haven’t made one. The one rumoured with the Islanders would have been a disaster, so I’m glad that didn’t go down.

It seems like they’re going to trade JVR, but as I’ve explained, keeping him at his team friendly $4.5 and letting him walk later is probably the best return you’re going to get for him, considering recent trades of left-wingers Taylor Hall, Marcus Johansson and Braydon Schenn.

The trade the Leafs should make is for Jordan Staal. They need to upgrade their defensive abilities at forward. Staal is an elite defensive player and other than Komarov, the Leafs don’t have any great defensive players.

Staal’s salary could be offset by moving Bozak and Fehr, and the Leafs could easily put together an attractive package of young players they have no room for and draft picks they can live without.

Conclusion:

So far I give the Leafs off-season a C+. They failed the Expansion Draft, they crushed the Entry Draft, and they blew a ton of money in free-agency without getting significantly better.

I also downgrade them a bit for trying to overpay for Travis Hamonic. They still haven’t improved their team defense at all and that puts too much pressure on Andersen.

Next: Toronto Maple Leafs Antiquated Rules Are a Joke

I am willing to move the grade up, but so far it’s been an average (at best) off season and I don’t know how anyone could say otherwise.

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Toronto Maple Leafs Off Season Review (So far)

By James Tanner | Jul 9, 2017