James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs have got to buy. In the NHL, you don’t need to be ‘the best team in the league’ to have a chance to win the Stanley Cup. Very few President’s Trophy winners double up and win the Cup too. A seven game playoff series features massive amounts of randomness and luck, and even if you had true contender status and loaded up at the deadline, there are no guarantees.
There are no guarantees for the future either. Sure, a team with Matthews et. al in their prime and a defense built around Liljegren and Dermott and Rielly sounds amazing, but who knows what’s going to happen? There is a reason that the cliché ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush’ is eternal – smart people go for it, and they always have.
The future is easy to idealize, but the present is where you live. If you have an aging team, it makes sense to put all your eggs in one basket, but most of the time, you’ve got to create a balance so that when your risk doesn’t pay off, you aren’t completely screwed. We always approach these things like they are binary, but it’s more complicated in reality. There is no reason the Leafs couldn’t make significant adds without giving away too much of the future.
What to Do?
The Leafs have their three best players on cheap, team-friendly entry-level deals. This is the last year that happens. In the future, when all of those guys are making huge money, the team will have to make hard choices about players like van Riemsdyk, Kadri, Marleau etc.
Right now, the Leafs have incredible depth. Because Marner, Matthews, and Nylander cost basically nothing, the Leafs have the luxury of having players like van Riemsdyk and Bozak on the third line.
They also have cap space that they can use to add even more depth. They’ve got the assets to do it without sacrificing their future or going ‘all in’ for just a single attempt to win.
The risk vs reward for buying heavily now in order to try to win this year is heavily in the favor of going for it. The Leafs have prospects like Andreas Johnson who are NHL ready but who they have no room for, they’ve got all their draft picks and enough in the pipeline that they won’t really miss a lost first rounder or two.
The fact is, the Toronto Maple Leafs have a very unique opportunity to try to win this season. Especially when, statistically, there is almost no reason to favor Tampa or Boston over them.
The Leafs must buy at the deadline and they must go big. Sure they need a fourth line centre, but I am talking a much bigger prize than that. The Leafs need to swing for the fences.