Toronto Maple Leafs: Josh Leivo Fighting for an Opportunity

The Toronto Maple Leafs have themselves a player who’s more than ready to make an impact.

Josh Leivo has been part of the Toronto Maple Leafs roster for a few years now, but he has rarely gotten a chance to prove his worth.

Since first getting called up to the big club five years ago, Leivo’s usage by the Leafs has been both inconsistent and minimal. Heading into the 2018-19 season, he has recorded 10 goals and 12 assists for 22 points in 57 career games.

By now, he should have been a well-established forward in this Leafs line-up, but there have been some unfortunate circumstances blocking his path to the big league.

Being a young winger on a team filled with veterans when he first cracked the lineup in 2013 meant he was typically slotted as the 13th forward. No one could argue this at the time since he was a 3rd round pick from the 2011 Entry draft that was still in development.

His road to the NHL required him to pay his dues in the AHL and work on bringing his game to new heights. He proved to be a productive player across four seasons with the Toronto Marlies, registering 51 goals and  71 assists for 122 points in 166 games.

Once the 2016-17 season rolled around, he was finally able to crack the Leafs’ 23-man roster for good. Even on a team dominated by mostly young players, Leivo was once again on the outside looking in.

Despite his best efforts, game after game Leivo was forced to view the action from the press box. He was too often a spectator watching the game from above as players like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander dazzled fans en route to a surprise playoff appearance.

When the 2017-18 season began, Leivo was once again a permanent fixture on the 23-man roster. Once again, however, he was barely able to crack the lineup on most nights and had to view from the sidelines as the Leafs went on to have a historical season.

With each passing game, Leivo’s lack of playing became increasingly harder for him to bear. A breaking point, it seemed, was inevitable.

Desperate to Play

By early February, Leivo was still sporadically inserted into the Leafs’ lineup. His last game appearance at that time was a New Year’s Eve tilt against the Vegas Golden Knights, in which he was on the ice for roughly 9 minutes and registered only a single shot.

Then, during the intermission of a Saturday night game against the Boston Bruins, a report about his frustrations of not playing much became public.

Two days later, he revealed to reporters that the reason he requested a trade was from his desire to play despite his love of the team that drafted him in 2011. Up to that point, he had only appeared in a combined 25 games since the start of the 2016-17 season and was given a limited role when he was in the lineup, averaging roughly 11 minutes a night.

While he had locked up a one-year extension a few months prior, Leivo’s desire to be in the everyday lineup was too hard to suppress. Here’s what his agent, Ian Pulver, told Jonas Sigel of The Athletic about it around the time of Leivo’s trade request:

"“Josh is a player who would stand in front of a train for the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Pulver said in a statement. “Josh was drafted by the Leafs and he wants to be a long-time Leaf. He would love to be in the lineup ‪Monday night, and every night thereafter. Having said that, he hasn’t been in the lineup for a long time, and hasn’t played much in the past two seasons.  He has reached a point in his career where he simply needs to play regularly.”"

Despite the unfortunate circumstances and mental anguish he was experiencing, Leivo remained optimistic about getting his chance.

“We know we’re deep, so I just have to keep working and wait for the opportunity. It’s a tough lineup to crack, but I just have to keep working,” he told Kristen Shilton of TSN back in February. “When you have a good team here, good group of guys, we all get along and they help you get through it. They keep you positive and keep you going.”

Even with the plea for wanting to get an opportunity to play more came out in public, nothing changed. The trade deadline came and went with Leivo still on the Leafs’ roster and a regular healthy scratch, which he begrudgingly had come to expect.

From February 3rd on, Leivo would play only four more times, resulting in him recording just a single point in that span. Like the season prior, he was once again forced to watch his team lose a hard-fought series in the playoffs.

It seemed that Leivo was caught in an endless cycle of deja vu year after year without any chance of escape. Then, a major roster turnover made way for a glimmer of hope.

The first day of free agency saw the team lose James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, and Leo Komarov to free agency while bringing in John Tavares to bolster the centre depth. After years of being left behind because of the depth on the wings, it appeared that Leivo would finally get his chance.

But, as quickly as it seemed he found an opening, yet another obstacle was thrust his way. Nearly a week into the free agency frenzy the Leafs brought in Tyler Ennis on a one-year deal who, like Leivo, is fighting just to keep playing.

When training camp got underway in early September, it was Ennis who was given a prime opportunity to prove the team right for bringing him into the fold. From the start of preseason, he spent time playing alongside Matthews and Patrick Marleau, making a strong impression for his case to be in the lineup.

Meanwhile, Leivo was barely noticeable on the ice and was unable to make his presence felt in any significant way. In the first three games of the preseason, he didn’t record a single point and was on the ice for roughly 10 minutes per night according to CBS Sports.

That was until the preseason tilt against the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night. In about 13 minutes of ice-time, he exploded offensively with a 3-point night, two of which came on the power play.

He was flying through the offensive zone, seemed to have a jump to his skating when with the puck, and overall looked confident the whole game en route to a 6-2 win. For Leivo, this level of output was a satisfying reward for all the work he has put in.

“Being able to play with two great linemates in [Kadri] and [Brown] obviously helps boost the confidence a little bit,” he told reporters following the game. “Still gotta work hard, I think the offseason training helped a lot and the nutrition. That was a big help coming into this training camp.”

It’s true that Leivo focused on his nutrition during the off-season, altering his diet to help improve his overall health as he told Dave McCarthy of Sporting News. Perhaps that could explain why Leivo appears to be a faster player compared to previous seasons.

So was all the off-season work enough to get him into the lineup for good? As Mike Babcock told Sigel following the game against Detroit, Leivo has at least earned his chance for the time being given the circumstances surrounding the team currently.

While it seems that the path for Leivo to be in a Leafs uniform more often is clearly before him, the work to make it permanent is just getting started.

“My goal this year is to play 82 [games] and help this team into the playoffs,” he told reporters on Friday. “I’m excited to get this opportunity and just gotta keep making the most of it.”

After spending the past few years stuck in what seemed like hockey purgatory, Leivo will no doubt view this year as a chance to break the shackles of being the 13th forward once and for all. With the prime of his career nearly in sight, the 2018-19 season could very well be his breakout season.

Thanks for reading!

All stats unless otherwise noted are from Hockey-Reference.com.