The Toronto Maple Leafs will finally kick off the season today against the Jets.
After one of the longest summers ever – due to the team finally being awesome after years of being terrible – the Toronto Maple Leaf are back.
The hand-wringing over who will make the roster is now complete, and instead of pondering obsessively over who will make the team, we can now criticize relentlessly who they put on it.
For instance, one could bemoan choosing the ancient and ineffective Dominic Moore over the younger, faster, Miro Aaltonen, just for example. But what good does that do? The team has to start somewhere and it is only fair to give the vet who they signed over the summer the first crack at the job.
Personally, I don’t think it will be too long until Moore becomes a press-box staple in favor of Aantonen.
Andreas Borgman
Andreas Borgman has made the team as the final defenseman. He should make his NHL debut tonight. As I understand it, he is the harder hitting and less skilled of the two interchangeable Swedes the Leafs. If this is indeed true, then that makes sense because while the Leafs are high in skill on the blue line, they are light in physicality.
Borgman, Marincin, Rosen, it’s all the same to me. The problem I have remains Ron Hainsey. The Leafs are a team on the verge of being a cup contender, if they aren’t already. This is the last year that all three of Nylander, Marner and Matthews will be dirt-cheap. So I just find it perplexing beyond all capacities for thought why the team would enter the season using a player they know full well can’t handle top four minutes in their top four.
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It’s almost like they just assumed they’d be able to swap JVR for a defenseman (we know they almost did) and didn’t have a back-up plan to fill out the top four. Hainsey is 36 and has a recent history of making everyone he plays with worse. Players who are 36 hardly, if ever, improve. You don’t need to be a genius to see this. I understand wanting to give him a chance, and I hope I am wrong, but I don’t need to and I’m not.
Kapanen
With Kapanen and Aaltonen swapped out for vets, the Leafs have made themselves slower than they need to be. Kapanen, who is arguably the Leafs fastest player, is also one of their better defensive forwards, and defensive forwards happen to be a team weakness. I can’t see him being off the team long.
Other concerns for me are Carrick and Gardiner being broken up after being the team’s best pairing last year, and Marleau forcing Brown down to the fourth line. I’m not sure the upgrade from Marleau to Brown is all that big, but on the plus side, Brown gives the Leafs one of the best fourth line players in the NHL.
All in all, the optimism for this season vastly outweighs any minor concerns. The team is excellent, the team is stacked. If the Toronto Maple Leafs can add another defenseman, which I’m certain they will, they will have possibly the best team in the NHL. Tonight we’ll get to see Trouba, and maybe he is the one who best fits the bill.