Toronto Maple Leafs: 1st Big Mistake of Shanahan Era

The Toronto Maple Leafs signed Patrick Marleau this summer.  It was the first big mistake of the Shanahan Era.

Marleau was the Toronto Maple leafs signature move of the summer so far.  But I don’t like it. Most fans seem to, and that’s fair.  At first, I did too. I was just excited they did something July 1st, and pretty happy that they brought in a hall of famer.  But the more I thought about it, the less I liked about the signing.  The following is my reasoning for not being as excited as everyone else seems to be.

1) Leadership Is a Dumb Reason to Hire Someone

I already know exactly what the comments will say about that headline, so please, don’t bother!  The fact is, the argument for leadership in the NHL is a spurious one, at best.  Teams use it as a catch-all excuse for failure, or making a move.  Fans argue about it without really ever being able to know one way or the other.

The thinking goes that you can’t win with a young team unless there is an old guy around to guide the players.  I certainly think leadership is important, but it’s not just automatically imparted with age.

Listen to Morgan Rielly talk for five minutes – he’s charismatic, well spoken and smart. It’s obvious he’s a leader.  Since he’s been the best player on every team he’s ever been on, up to making the NHL, this is no surprise.

But he’s only 22.  Marleau may be a good leader, but he’s actually a guy who was stripped of his captaincy and had his effort questioned about one million times.  Just because he’s older than everyone doesn’t mean he’ll provide leadership.  He might, but what if he just comes onto the team and it’s awkward now because young players who were developing leadership roles now feel the need to back off and defer to the old guy?

Seems to me both things have an equal chance of occurring.  It is my experience that leaders and leadership occur naturally, and that trying to anoint a leader, or shoehorn one into an existing group, never works.

2. Roster Make-Up

The Toronto Maple Leafs greatest strength is their depth at wing. They currently have too many wingers for too few positions.  In fact, the Leafs currently have at least three or four extra wingers, all of whom are NHL players.

What was the sense of signing a player who plays a position they don’t need? Even if the Leafs plan is to trade a winger, or two, the odds are they will now have to put a solid, NHL ready player in the AHL and/or pressbox. Already this summer, the Leafs lost Brandon Leipsic and Seth Griffith.  There seems, at the moment, no place for Josh Leivo or Kasperi Kapanen to play.  And forget about making the team if you are a rookie this year.

The Leafs could have used a centre, or a defensemen, or even a goalie.  All positions are more pressing for the team, as currently constructed, than a winger.

The Toronto Maple Leafs also need defensive players. Other than Komarov, and arguably Kadri and Kapanen, the Leafs have no effective defensive forwards. Their team defense is a joke.  Last year they blew how many multi-goal, third period leads?  Fifty-five?

Not to mention that they were also the second worst team for allowing shots at even-strength in the entire league, and that their team strengths were a) generating shots and b) the power-play.

So why bring in a bad defensive player who is only good at generating shots and scoring on the power-play?  Marleau is  a player whose skills are the exact same as what the Leafs already have, and the exact opposite of what they need.

3. Salary and Salary Cap

The Toronto Maple Leafs might have a little cap lee-way, but value is value and spending badly still hurts.  It doesn’t matter if the Toronto Maple Leafs have one dollar or twenty-million available – overpaying hurts them and prevents them from improving their team.

Marleau’s salary for this season might not hurt too badly.  Once the winger log-jam is cleared up, and once the LTIR contracts have come off the books, the Leafs will still have room to sign some more players, even if this did rob them of much of their flexibility.

Then there is next year when William Nylander needs a new contract.  The year after, it’s new deals for Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.  It’s at this point where the pure craziness of this deal will really shine through.

Patrick Marleau is simply not worth six million dollars and three years.  Those dollars and that term will haunt the team and eventually cost them a  player or two they’d rather not have lost.

This kind of short-sighted, bad contract is exactly what prompted the failure of the Burke and Nonis era.

There were better players available (Jagr) who were presumably cheaper (he’s still not signed), and that is what makes this contract more frustrating than anything else –  not one game of it has elapsed and it’s already proven to be a huge over-payment.

Spending money you can’t afford on things you don’t need is something a parent tries to teach their children about, so you’d think a 72 year old GM with 30+  years of NHL experience would know better.

4. His Game is Declining

Patrick Marleau is 37 years old.  He may still be a fast skater, but it is a physical impossibility that he is as fast as he used to be.  When fast skaters slow down, they tend to get significantly worse.  Notice that guys who don’t seem to ever decline – Joe Thornton and Jaromir Jagr – were never that fast to begin with.  It’s because the body declines faster than the mind.

Marleau’s point totals have decreased now for four straight years. If you ignore his renaissance year (or at least consider that it might be an anomaly) where he scored 70 goals at age 33, he’s been declining for eight straight years. It’s been a slow decline, I’m not saying he’s been garbage or anything.  But a decline it most definitely has been.

The guys is 37 and there is always a chance, increasing by the year, that he drops right off a cliff.  Marleau scored 27 goals last season, but at his age, that can become 10 pretty quickly.  I mean, it might not, but it’s a possibility that makes the risk/reward of this contract look like it wasn’t given much thought.

Marleau scored 27 goals last season, and that sounds impressive.  But only 20 of those were 5v5.  That’s the same amount of goals as Connor Brown.  Brown sure isn’t getting six million on his new contract.  But because of Marleau, he might get less ice-time.

Marleau, as the chart indicates, brings zero defense to the table. At 5v5 he is an above average shot generator, and that’s it.  Brown is just as good, but did it with less ice time.

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The only real place Marleau is effective, is the power-play.  With Nylander, Matthews, Marner, Kadri, JVR, and Brown, I’m not sure the Leafs need the one thing Marleau provides.

Conclusion:

The Toronto Maple Leafs should not have signed Patrick Marleau.  He is old, his game is in decline and his main skills are the exact things the Leafs are already good at.

The main reason for signing him (leadership) is, at best, a hail-Mary. There is no compelling reason to think that the Leafs needed leadership or that Marleau can provide it.

The salary is exorbitant, the term abhorrent, and better players could have been had for cheaper.  It is a move that makes little sense, and is bound to blow up in the team’s face.

Next: Is the Leafs Management Bad?

I hope I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the first really big mistake of the Brendan Shanahan era has occurred.

stats from NHL.com  Hero Chart from ownthepuck.blogspot.ca