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Toronto Maple Leaf Forecaster: Where Does Nikita Zaitsev Play?

By Torrin Batchelor

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With Auston Matthews vs Patrick Laine stealing most of our attention lately, we haven’t had a chance to focus on our other recent addition to Toronto Maple Leafs Nation; Nikita Zaitsev.

More importantly, we haven’t had a chance to talk about where he fits inside the Leafs next season and who he pairs up with, so let’s take a look at that now. If you are unfamiliar with the Toronto Maple Leafs newest addition, check out Tim Chiasson’s piece on him here.

Nikita Zaitsev is the only right-handed shot currently scheduled to be on the Leafs’ opening night roster. The way Connor Carrick is playing for the Marlies now, leading the AHL playoffs in scoring you can safely pencil him in as well. Traditional coaching says you want a lefty and a righty on each of your 3 D pairs. With only 2 (barring a trade or UFA signing), that puts the Leafs in a bit of a bind.

Let’s start with our constants and build up the Leafs projected D core and fill Zaitsev in where he fits naturally. The top pair starts and ends with Morgan Rielly. He played well with both Matt Hunwick and Martin Marincin after Hunwick was injured, in a heavy minutes shut down role. Whoever doesn’t make it with Rielly between Marincin and Hunwick likely anchors the third pairing, we’ll say Hunwick.

Some of those extra defensive zone minutes are naturally going to get passed to the second pairing, anchored by the smooth skating Jake Gardiner.

That leaves us looking like:

Marincin-Rielly

Gardiner-?

Hunwick-?

?

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The Leafs will now have Viktor Loov, Stuart Percy, Rinat Valiev, Scott Harrington, Frank Corrado, Zaitsev and Carrick fighting for those last 3 spots barring a trade. Let’s assume that because they are both still waiver eligible that Loov and Valiev start with the Marlies.

After missing almost all last season with a lower body injury, Scott Harrington will probably need a conditioning stint in the AHL, so let’s take him off the list too. For the sake of this article we’ll assume Percy and Corrado fight for spot No.7 and we have Carrick and Zaitsev left for the RHD on the 2nd and 3rd pairs.

On one hand you’d like your young rookie (Carrick) to have the steady veteran savvy of Hunwick to lean on, but the same argument could be made for the young Dman coming from a different game (Zaitsev played in the KHL last season) over seas.

Neither Gardiner or Hunwick is particularly physical, while Carrick has some “grease” to his game. Zaitsev isn’t known for playing a hard-nosed game and usually uses his plus skating to get himself and the puck out of his zone.

Carrick scored a large number of his goals by pinching in from the point and getting a shot off from the circles. Zaitsev is more about straight point shots that consistently make their way through traffic and get on net.

Gardiner is also all about pinching and essentially being a 4th forward, so let’s keep him and Carrick separated. This isn’t saying that Zaitsev can’t pinch, because he has elite level offensive awareness and is very good at carrying the puck into the zone, more so that he has a more dynamic game than Carrick at this stage of their careers.

Check out a great compilation video of Nikita Zaitsev’s 2015-16 KHL season here.

Marincin-Rielly

Gardiner-Zaitsev

Hunwick-Carrick

Corrado/Percy

That second pairing of Gardiner and Zaitsev should move the puck like lightning. Zaitsev by all accounts is also an excellent 2 way Dman so he can help Gardiner float as the 4th forward as he often does.

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They should also excel at getting the puck to our young and speedy forward core, which should in theory help us score more than last season. The defence overall certainly lacks a physical element, with Connor Carrick being the only D who’d be described as physical. It appears the Leafs defence as constructed above would be susceptible to a big, aggressive fore-checking team hemming them in their own zone for stretches of time.

Lou will probably be looking to address that next summer though, once he’s got more of an idea of what our young D can do. Viktor Loov and Scot Harrington are both internal options that bring more of a safe, physical brand to the blue line, but as stated above both will probably start with the Marlies.

Next: Is Marner Better Than We Thought?

However, the NHL is drifting quickly towards skill+speed over physicality, especially on defence with elite players like Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang and John Klingberg leading the way. The way we’ve projected the Leafs D-core may not prove to be a glaring weakness after all.

Gardiner+Zaitsev for the win.

What are your thoughts? Will Gardiner and Zaitsev work? Should Zaitsev be paired with someone else? Feel free to comment below or reach out to me on Twitter with your thoughts @TorrinBatchelor

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