Toronto Maple Leafs Nuts If they Cut Josh Leivo

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a deep team.

If the first two lines from last year remain intact, and if Patrick Marleau lines up with Kadri and Komarov, then the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t have room for obvious top-nine forwards Connor Brown, Kasperi Kapanen and Josh Leivo.

And if you’re Miro Aaltonen or Carl Grundstrom, you don’t even have a chance!  This isn’t a bad problem to have – better than having a thin lineup, that’s for sure.   But, until the inevitable trade materializes, the Leafs are in a situation where, no matter what they do, they are going to be benching and demoting useful NHL players.

Which brings us to Josh Leivo.

Josh Leivo

At 24 Leivo is getting old to be a prospect, but it’s not his fault.  All he’s done is produce when given the opportunity.  Last year, he was not only a close to a point-per-game player, but he led the entire NHL in points/60.  (Though he only played 13 games.).

Another thing about Leivo is that when he’s on the ice, his team gets shots. Individually, he is an excellent shot-producer, but when he skates, everyone benefits.  Last season, Leivo led the Leafs in Corsi-For percentage, with a 55.16 rating.  For those not overly familiar with shot-differentials, that’s a very good rating.  It may all be just a mirage due to a small sample size, but at the very least, it warrants further investigation.

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In Leivo’s first pre-season action, in game one vs the Senators, he skated for almost 13 5v5 minutes and had a 63.64 CF%, contributing to 14 shot-attempts for and only 8 against.  There are no stats available from last night, one assumes because the came was played at the Ricoh, but from a strictly eye-test position, Leivo and his line of Brown and Aaltonen (C) looked great.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned they were close to 70% last night.  It would be great if the Leafs would skate this as their fourth line, but I think they are over-committed (wrongly) to playing Martin and Moore, which is akin to making their team worse on purpose, but what can you do?

Trades Coming……….Eventually

After the game, Babcock was complimentary, but you can’t read too much into that.  Basically, until the Leafs move on from JVR and Bozak, guys like Kapanen and Leivo are going to get screwed over.  What’s more, I think the Leafs would be a better team if they moved the two guys who are obviously not here long term.

JVR is obviously hard to replace, but with three legit #1 centres, and the defensive presence of Kapanen and the shot generation of Leivo, and with the addition to the line-up of whatever you get for him, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs will be a better team overall once they make the trades that anyone can see are obviously coming.

Next: Toronto Maple Leafs: Legit Contenders

Until that time though, we’re just going to have to get used to the idea of Josh Leivo and Kasperi Kapanen being wasted.