The Toronto Maple Leafs failed to climb back to the top of the NHL standings. That’s bad.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are at or near the top of the NHL standings on any given night, despite playing without William Nylander or Auston Matthews. That’s good.
You can see how this is gonna go, right?
The Leafs allowed 29 shots in the first period of last night’s game. That is really, really bad. I mean, not in the sense that it really matters – it doesn’t – but that is a terrible period. 29 shots is what you should be aiming to allow in 60 minutes, not 20. The Leafs lost and they deserved to.
Toronto Maple Leafs Good and Bad
Kyle Dubas is a young, progressive, intelligent general manager, and that is good.
His first move was to sign John Tavares, and that was good, although anyone could have probably done that.
Dubas’ second move was to trade away Connor Carrick, and that was bad. It’s not like Carrick was going to suddenly become an all-star, but he likely could have outperformed both Zaitsev and Hainsey if given a chance.
The jury will be out on Dubas until he signs or trades his ‘big three’ and until he completes his first major trade. Right now, I’m optimistic about him and I was very happy when the Leafs hired him. That was good.
But unless he signs William Nylander or trades him in a Ryan Johanson for Seth Jones style heisting, then he will have failed and it will taint his entire tenure as GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs. That is bad.
Speaking of bad, the William Nylander trade ideas are terrible. . We can all agree that the Leafs won when they sacrificed JVR and Bozak for Tavares, right? Because Tavares is an elite player and he and any other Leafs player you could reasonably play in place of JVR or Bozak combine to be worth more than either. This is a simple equation, and really obvious if you think about it for two seconds.
But it means that Nylander – who is an elite player and who scored more points per minute than John Tavares last year – cannot be traded for two average players. Colton Parayko (compares poorly to elite defenseman like Hedman) and whoever else the Blues would throw in don’t equate to what Nylander brings. Package deals don’t work when involving elite players.
But the Leafs are winning without Nylander, so they should trade him for a defenseman which they supposedly need. This is bad logic. I see it every day and it’s terrible. I mean, if they’re winning without Nylander, guess what? They are also winning without this hypothetical defenseman too.
We’ll end on a good note: Jake Gardiner is good. Playing the most minutes, and playing the toughest minutes on the league’s best team while scoring at a 40 point pace.
Bottom line: When you have two of the best defenseman in the world, you don’t have to trade one of your excess forwards in a losing trade just for positional need. That would be bad.