Toronto Maple Leafs: 5 Players To Add for Cup Run

TORONTO, ON – JULY 1: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs poses with his jersey after signing with the Maple Leafs, beside Kyle Dubas, General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Brendan Shanahan, President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, at the Scotiabank Arena on July 1, 2018 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the NHL’s best teams.

Centre depth is the most important thing in the NHL and the Leafs have three of the best.  John Tavares is 3rd among NHL forwards in Goals Above Replacement averaged over the last three seasons.  Auston Matthews is currently the best goal scorer in the NHL. Nazem Kadri would be the #1 centre on several NHL teams, and is easily top 20-30 at that position.  He is one of only three centres to score 30 in each of the last two seasons.

In addition to having one of the NHL’s best teams, the Leafs also happen to have a ton of cap space for the upcoming seasons, about 20 or so million’s worth, once they move Nathan Horton to the LTIR.

And the Leafs also happen to have a collection of players in their prime (Gardiner, Rielly, Andersen, Kadri and Tavares), cheap young players (Dermott, Carrick, Johnsson, Kapanen) and young players still getting better (Nylander, Matthews and Marner).

In a year, some of their in-their-prime players will have declined slightly.  In a year, Matthews and Marner won’t be dirty cheap and will take up probably close to $20 million in cap space.

So, while the Toronto Maple Leafs should be able to be a Cup Contender for years to come (owing to a Tavares, Matthews combo)  they are never going to have the stars align quite like they are for this coming season.

Therefore it makes perfect sense for the Leafs to go ‘all-in’ for this year. That doesn’t mean that they rip their team apart and sacrifice the future just for one year, but it does mean making controlled and calculated risks in order to take advantage of a once-in-lifetime culmination of events that are going to give them the best shot they’ll ever have.  (It’s quite possible that things have never aligned this well for any team since the salary cap came into effect).

So with that in mind, here is a list of players the Leafs should pursue in their quest for the Stanley Cup in 2019.

Erik Karlsson

Erik Karlsson has been on the trade block all summer, and there were a couple times when it seemed like the trade was going to happen, only to cool off and leave a bunch of NHL fans desperate for action completely disappointed.

If Karlsson is being traded, the Leafs should have interest.

His cap-hit of $6.5 would easily fit on the Leafs, and they probably have the assets to get it done, if they want to.

Ottawa would be stupid to eliminate the possibility of trading Karlsson to Toronto just because it’s their main rival.  They aren’t winning the Cup this year and so they should take the best deal, regardless of who it’s from.

Karlsson would instantly become the best defenseman in franchise history and would make the Leafs clear-cut Cup Favorites.  It would take a high price for a rental and re-signing him would be problematic (although, once you have him, you’d probably try).

For one year of glory, why not go for it?  Karlsson is one of the best players in the NHL, a guaranteed hall-of-famer, and the NHL’s current best defenseman by about six miles.  No one can touch him and he just happens to play the position (RD) that the Toronto Maple Leafs are weakest at.

Why not throw the Senators a whole bunch of picks and prospects and see what happens?

Artemi Panarin

Maybe it’s because he came from the KHL and doesn’t have the draft pedigree that NHL fans use to inflate a player’s reputation, or maybe it’s because he plays in Columbus, but most people I talk to don’t seem to understand just how good Panarin is.

Make no mistake: Artemi Panarin is a top-ten  player in the NHL.  He is every bit the peer of Auston Matthews and John Tavares.  In fact, if the Leafs did acquire him, there is no right answer on who the best out of those three is. You could make an argument for each of them.

Artemi Panarin is 26, in his absolute prime and he would make the Leafs offense something north of the ’87 Oilers.

‘But the Leafs need defenseman’ I can hear you say. But do they?  When you are adding a superstar player to your roster, it doesn’t matter what position he plays.  The nice thing about the NHL is that your best players only play 20 minutes per game, so you can have more than a couple star forwards because there is no diminishing returns like there is in basketball where there are only so many touches.

The Leafs could have one of Matthews, Panarin and Tavares on a separate line and essentially destroy teams with a 3 x first line set-up.  If you added Karlsson, he’d have to face top competition. If you added Panarin, he’d have to face third-line competition.  Arguably an extra star forward could give the Leafs a bigger edge than adding the defenseman everyone thinks they need.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should be going hard after Panarin.

Nino Niederreiter

Man, if you think it was hard to learn how to spell Plekanec, just wait until you’re forced to write out Niederreiter ever single day.

But that is the only drawback I can see to the Leafs acquiring the NHL’s premier defensive forward.  Nino comes with a reasonable long-term cap hit and so he’s the first on our list who isn’t a rental.

He also provides the one thing the Leafs are missing: an elite defensive presence on their forward lines.

It is no coincidence that the 2008 Penguins traded for Marian Hossa, or that the 2009 Red Wings traded for Marian Hossa, or that the 2010 Blackhawks traded for Marian Hossa.

Hossa was the NHL’s best defensive winger for year, and he played in three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, losing the first two before going on to twin Three Cups with the Hawks.

So just so we are clear: in at least five of the last ten Stanley Cup Finals, the league’s best defensive forward made an appearance.

Do I need write anything else, or can we just agree that the Leafs should probably make a move for Nino?

Cody Franson

What don’t we know about Cody Franson?  That’s the question I can’t help asking myself when I look at the statistics this guy puts up and compare them with the fact that he doesn’t have an NHL contract at the moment.

Last year, on the Blackhawks, Franson was released despite out-playing Duncan Keith (a sad shadow of his former self) and Brett Seabrook (he was never that good).  He led the Hawks with a 58% possession rating and the lowest shots-against per/60 on the team.

Why would they release him? Stats-nerds across the entire NHL asked and never received an answer.

At 6’5 and only 30 years old, Cody Franson is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NHL for reasons that remain a mystery.  His massive size comes with the expectation of physical play and he does not provide it. He also looks slow as hell out there.

But by every way we have to measure player performance, Cody Franson is a way above average hockey player.

He consistently scores at about a 30 point pace. He limits shots against.  He drives possession.  And he’s right handed.

Cody Franson should be a super-star.  He should be considered one of the NHL’s better defenseman.  He is available, essentially for free and the Toronto Maple Leafs should sign him. Now.

Franson is the easiest add, but the Leafs should be trying to get at least two of the guys on this list.  This is the year for them to go for it, and by adding any of these players (Panarin, Karlsson, Niederreiter, Tanev or Franson) they would be strong Stanley Cup Favorites.

stats from naturalstattrick, hockeydb, capfriendly and corsica.hockey