Toronto Maple Leafs: The Marlies Biggest Challenge Yet

Are the Toronto Maple Leafs as deep as we think?

Within the realm of typical hockey speak, few monikers are more coveted and frequently used than “depth”. Teams love depth. They need it. They crave it. Frankly, who wouldn’t?

Depth makes life easier for all involved. It lessens the collective load, therein masking a few otherwise detected errors and steadies the ship in lieu of some notable absences.

As an organization, the Toronto Maple Leafs and, by extension, the Toronto Marlies are fortunate enough to have this coveted depth. And now, they’re really going to need it.

The Marlies’ D corps is held up by 4 Swedish pillars; Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren, Calle Rosen and Andreas Borgman.

For the foreseeable future, the team will be without every single one of them.

Sandin is currently with Team Sweden at the World Junior Championships and not expected to return until January. Liljegren, a fellow Swede, was initially expected to attend the tournament as well until suffering a high ankle sprain in early December made that impossible, sidelining him ever since. Rosen and Borgman both went down with respectively undisclosed ailments of their own on December 19th and a timetable for either’s recovery has yet to be determined.

That is some devastating personnel loss – the kind of which is only made worse by an unforgiving stretch of the schedule looming on the horizon.

From December 26th – January 12th, the Marlies will play a whopping 9 times in a span of just 18 days. Or, more simply, one game every other day. The next two and a half weeks will also feature the Marlies’ fiercest card of opponents yet; with three games coming against the 5th place Rochester Americans and another two versus the Charlotte Checkers, who sit atop the AHL standings.

Sprinkled in are bouts with the North Division-leading Syracuse Crunch – who dusted the Marlies 8-1 in their most recent meeting – and the always pesky Utica Comets for good measure.

Yeah, the next few weeks could get real rough, real fast.

With the season now 32 games old, 7 of the Marlies’ 9 upcoming contests will be held against teams who have a minimum of 35 points while the remaining two take the form of divisional rivals.

Treading water in such dire circumstances would be a challenge for these Marlies, even at full strength. Only, they are not at full strength. Not even close. Instead, the Marlies will now try to contend with the cream of the AHL’s crop all while lacking their entire top-4 and the league’s 4th leading scorer, Trevor Moore, whose astounding 42-goal pace earned him a big league call-up on December 23rd.

It’s hard to argue that this doesn’t bear all the signs of an impending bloodbath. And, quite honestly, it very well could end up that way – what with the Marlies’ continued and glaring lack of hockey’s most intrinsic safeguard; goaltending.

Then again, what we tend to perceive as an inevitable disaster, Sheldon Keefe likely sees as an opportunity.

When it comes to prospects, Keefe is more of a “teach the kids to swim by tossing them straight into the deep end” type of coach. He’s certainly not averse to dolling out a challenge. In fact, thrusting younger players into situations the likes of which are intentionally outside their comfort level is just how Keefe operates.

And to great success, too.

It was Keefe who stationed the formerly perimeter-hugging Pierre Engvall on the Marlies’ shutdown line for the entirety of last year’s playoffs in an effort to maximize his then-defined ceiling – more or less tasking the 22-year-old with developing a two-way game on the fly.

Engvall did just that. And the strides he took as a versatile forward across the most pressure-induced portion of his career not only helped lead the Marlies first Calder Cup in franchise history, it earned Engvall an ELC in the process.

Engvall is far from the lone success story, though.

The Marlies’ 4 notable PTO signees from last season – Josh Kestner, Brady Ferguson, Derian Plouffe, and Scott Pooley – each spent time on either the first line, power play, or were sent out by Keefe to defend a lead in the game’s waning minutes.

All 4 were signed AHL deals over the summer.

Liljegren, in just his second season on North American ice, was logging top pair minutes while taking on penalty kill duty prior to spraining his ankle. Sandin hasn’t even hit the 20-game mark yet and is already a staple of the Marlies’ top PP unit.

Rather, what this stretch seemingly offers up is less of a disaster in waiting and more of a blessing in disguise.

Being a coach who loves to challenge his younger players, Keefe will now be afforded roughly two and a half weeks to do exactly that – giving the Marlies and, by extension, the Maple Leafs an extended window through which management can evaluate some of their lesser-used assets.

Having been a healthy scratch for 3 of the last 8 games, Michael Carcone will now become a featured component of the offence with Moore absent. Given that he came over in return for Josh Leivo, who happens to be an NHL asset, putting Carcone in the best position to succeed and therefore reap the most value is probably the right way to go.

Dmytro Timashov had seemingly played his way out of the Marlies’ lineup a few weeks ago, an uptick in responsibility could soon reverse his fortunes.

The same applies to Jordan Subban, who may stand to benefit most from the Marlies’ array of absences. If he plays his cards right, that is.

Subban’s play has waned heavily in recent weeks. So heavily, in fact, that the Marlies opted to roll a D pair of two left-shots instead of keeping their sides even with the right-handed Subban. That’s not a vote of confidence for anyone, let alone a 24-year-old pending RFA who could undoubtedly use one.

But the backend depth formerly burying Subban and shackling him to the press box is gone now, at least for the time being. It’s up to him to use that to his advantage.

Regardless of whether or not he does, the next 18 days will be extremely telling in regards to how much of that coveted depth the Leafs truly have.

Thanks for reading!