Toronto Maple Leafs: 8 Potentially Controversial Opinions

The Toronto Maple Leafs are at home to take on the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the team with the worst name and logo and colours in the NHL.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are 9-5 with 18 points, three back of the Lightning, who have an extra win and one OT loss in the same amount of games.  Not bad to keep pace with the Lightning when you are missing two of your best players.

The Penguins game was the Leafs best of the season so far, and I think it’s fair to say it was a total domination.  Morgan Rielly and Mitch Marner were unreal. It’s crazy to think a team as good as the Leafs iced on Saturday (arguably the best defenseman in the NHL right now, Tavares, Marner, Kadri) can be further augmented by the NHL’s second best player, and a guy who outscored Sidney Crosby last year 5v5.

When the team is together and they have an idea of how much cap space they have, they’ll be able to get even better by trading picks and prospects to help them take advantage of the fact that they’ll never have a better chance to win that now.  (Marner and Matthews are on their entry-level deals and this means that the 20 million in cap space they’ll take up next year can be allotted to other players now).

Toronto Maple Leafs Thoughts

1. As I said yesterday, Kasperi Kapanen has established himself as a legitimate first line winger.  He currently has the second most points per minute in the NHL, is one of the league’s fastest players and his ascension means that the Leafs need just one more top six winger to round out their team.

2. That brings me to my next point:  Zach Hyman just does not score enough to warrant a top six role on a contending team.  Marner and Tavares could really use a third guy they can consider a peer to make their line one of the best in the NHL.

3. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but any combination of a Brett Pesce for William Nylander trade is a loss for the Leafs.  One so bad that it would go down as the worst in franchise history.   Brett Pesce is a mid-pairing defensive defenseman.

Keep in mind that bad defensive offensive defenseman are demonstrably more valuable in today’s NHL (I.e Tyson Barrie and John Klingberg are better than Brett Pesce). The Hurricanes being a good team also means their draft picks are not worth anything.  Pesce and a non-lottery pick + the best player the Hurricanes have in the minors is a major loss for the Leafs.

Does everyone forget Taylor Hall for Adam Larson already?

The Leafs are in win-now mode, so futures and prospects for an elite player is pretty dumb.  Limiting their trade demands to not just a defenseman, but a right handed defenseman is even dumber.

Unless the Hurricanes are offering Sebastian Aho, they aren’t a good fit here.  In fact, the Leafs should just shut up and pay Nylander because he deserves what he’s asking. In my opinion, anyone saying he’s greedy is misinformed, and anyone who no longer wants him on the team because he held out (like Brendan Shanahan did) is just being petty.

Even More……

4. After Auston Matthews, and arguably Tomas Kaberle and Mitch Marner, William Nylander is the best player the Toronto Maple Leafs have ever drafted.  He’s not going anywhere.

5. Kasperi Kapanen needs to play on the power-play. How is it even possible that he’s not?

6. Ron Hainsey needs to be cut. He’s awful. He’s dragging down Rielly.  This can’t go on.  OK he got his 1000 game, everyone was happy, now can we please send him to the AHL where he belongs?

7. Frederick Gauthier is still not an NHL player.  I think his success so far is because he’s playing with players (Johnsson, Ennis and Leivo) who aren’t even close to fourth liners against other fourth line competition.  He can’t score and so he can’t play.  A slight loss of defense in favor of any offense is a trade you make all day.

8.  I still can’t believe a team as bad on the blue-line as the Toronto Maple Leafs is keeping a player like Andreas Borgman in the minors.  Travis Dermott, who is quite clearly a top four NHL defenseman, and Borgman put up really similar numbers last season.

Too much is made of the right handed thing.  Just ship out Hainsey, recall Borgman, and pair Rielly with Gardiner or Dermott.