Toronto Maple Leafs: Marlies Call Up Power Rankings Part One

With a number of recent call-ups from the Toronto Marlies now making a name for themselves on the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s logical to wonder who is next in line.

Welcome to part one of the Toronto Marlies Call-Up Power Rankings!

In case the title wasn’t self-explanatory enough already, I will be ranking every Marlie over the next few days on their current standing in regards to an NHL promotion. To accomplish this, each player will be judged based on specific criteria:

• Contract status; i.e, players signed to an NHL deal will rank higher than those of otherwise equally deserving merit due to their contracts being applicable at the level above.
• Performance this season.
• Immediate positional need on the Leafs.
• Likelihood they are actually used by Mike Babcock and not sentenced to the press box for eternity.

Without further adieu, let’s get this goin’.

Defacto 1.

To be completely upfront with you, in different circumstances, Trevor Moore would be the otherwise obvious choice to hold down the top spot in the rankings here. But, with him getting ping-ponged up and down between levels at the same rate Michael Scott gets vasectomies, I’ve made the executive decision that he doesn’t count.

Snip snap, snip snap.

Sorry, Trev. You’ve already made it.

1. Calle Rosen

With Moore now out of contention, focus is then shifted towards Calle Rosen; the 24-year-old defender who not only stands first in line for a call-up should the opportunity arise, but has made quite the compelling case for himself to be named Marlies MVP at the mid-way point of the year.

Leading all Marlies defencemen in points with 24, Rosen’s production this season has already surpassed the 22 points he put forth over the course of his 62-game rookie campaign a year prior. Only this time, it took him all of 33 games to do it.

It’s frankly pretty difficult to overstate just how important Rosen is to the Marlies. Name a role, any role, and Rosen is likely the one who fills it.

Power play? With Timothy Liljegren still nursing a high-ankle sprain and Rasmus Sandin having not yet returned from his World Junior stint with Team Sweden, Rosen anchors the first pair and leads all Marlies defencemen in points on the man advantage with 7.

Penalty kill? It’s Rosen who assumes first unit duty in this case as well.

High danger minutes on the top pair? You better believe Rosen logs nearly the entirety of his even strength time against the opposition’s best and does a darn fine job shutting them down, too.

Once you then factor in the freshly-inked two-year extension Rosen signed on December 10th, it becomes clear that Leafs management, or, at the very least, Kyle Dubas, sees him as a long-term chip in the organization’s future.

And they’re going to need him as well.

With a cap crunch on the horizon, Rosen’s $700,000 AAV not only makes him the most cost-effective option waiting immediately in the wings, but his dual featured role on the Marlies, in turn, makes him the most experienced reinforcement as well.

As for whether or not Rosen will actually be given playing time upon ultimately reaching the NHL level or simply be used as Justin Holl‘s roommate in the doghouse of Mike Babcock? Well, that remains to be seen.

But hey, these are the call-up power rankings. That’s not my department.

2. Carl Grundstrom

Look, it’s been a difficult year for the Marlies, and a byproduct of such an up and down season is that, outside of Rosen, few big-league hopefuls have done all that much to force management’s hand for a promotion. This sentiment is particularly applicable to the forwards, by the way.

Gun to my head, though, it’s Carl Grundstrom who emerges as the consensus next man up.

If one word could be used to encapsulate Grundstrom’s performance to this point, I guess it would be:…fine? He hasn’t been bad, per se. In fact, not at all.

Grundstrom’s 23 points in 33 games this season is both perfectly adequate production for a 21-year-old experiencing his first full year on North American ice and also good enough to have him tied for 11th in AHL rookie scoring.

Grundstrom’s been good. Just not good enough to move the needle in any meaningful direction, though.

So, what’s been missing? Well, Grundstrom is undoubtedly at his best upon morphing into hockey’s equivalent of a bull in a china shop. And that bull has been conspicuously absent through most of the season thus far.

Standing tall at exactly 6 feet, Grundstrom may not tower over his opponents in typical (and outdated) power forward fashion, but he’s about as solid as they come and routinely uses his strong centre of gravity to successfully create separation along the boards.

While many pegged initially Grundstrom as a Leo Komarov clone due to the pair’s shared rough-and-tumble playing style, early glimpses actually seem to project him as more in the vein of a James van Riemsdyk-type – a result of Grundstrom’s affinity for finding open space in front of the net.

To illustrate this – and to not flood this section with gifs – I’ve chosen two particular goals of Grundstrom’s from the Marlies’ most recent playoff run that best showcase his most notable attribute.

Focus on how Grundstrom methodically tracks the play in the clip above; hovering around near the high slot before sneaking down only to anticipate the ensuing turnover. In a span of just 5 seconds, before either Phantom defender can even react, the puck is already in the net.

Bing, bang, boom. Goal.

Grundstrom doesn’t need to bash his way to the slot. He simply needs to get there in the first place, and repeatedly flashes a knack for doing so undetected.

Next on the docket is a power play one-timer against Utica, in which Grundstrom acts initially as a net-front screen that nearly leads to a goal itself, before successfully drawing a Comet defender behind the net once the puck moves into the corner.

With both defenders fully engaged with the puck carrier, Grundstrom then eases his way back into the slot all alone, therein opening a clear back-door passing lane.

Boom, goal, you get the drill.

The Grundstrom seen in the clips above is a Mike Babcock player; the kind who quickly endears himself to the Leafs’ bench boss via adept puck retrieval skills while occasionally demonstrating a degree of offensive flair.

Grundstrom is fortunate enough to have both. And if he can somehow manage to string together a month or two back at his former postseason level, the next Leaf injury may very well grant him an NHL job.

3. Timothy Liljegren

Two things happen to be true in regards to Timothy Liljegren‘s AHL sophomore season:

1. Prior to his ankle injury, Liljegren was beginning to thrive in minutes on the Marlies’ top pair.
2. I was thoroughly shocked when Kyle Dubas suggested he’d be ready to challenge for a spot on the Leafs as early as this season.

Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

Liljegren was indeed coming into his own this year in heavy minutes against the best his opponents could offer and even logged significant time on both special teams units before a high ankle sprain shelved him since mid-December.

Whereas Liljegren’s playing time was noticeably sheltered throughout his rookie campaign, an uptick in responsibility this year hints towards the former-first rounder beginning to undergo the customary rounding-out process all future Leafs are required to complete before making the ultimate leap.

With Liljegren having only just reached Canada’s legal drinking age, that is fantastic progress.

It’s easy to rush judgement when it comes to prospects. And given how well Liljegren performed as the AHL’s lone 18-year-old last season, not to mention how far he ultimately surpassed expectations, it’s easy to forget that we are still dealing with a teenager here. A teenager, mind you, playing what is arguably hockey’s most difficult position and doing so on a completely different ice surface than the one he’d been accustomed to for the entirety of his adolescent life.

Case in point; it’s important to look at him with context. Because, promising as he may be, Liljegren still shows lapses in a few crucial facets of the defensive game.

Liljegren occasionally struggles defending off the rush and, likely the result of a prolonged battle with mononucleosis, has yet to amass the requisite strength needed to win positional battles both in front of the net and along the boards.

More equipped for lateral movement, there are instances that see Liljegren end up on the losing end of straight-away footraces far too easily for someone of his skillset.

But growing pains were to be expected, and growing pains are exactly what has arrived.

This is nothing new. And when factoring in both the complete dearth of capable right-handed options currently on the Leafs’ back end along with the recent and surprisingly optimistic comments from Dubas, a promotion for Liljegren may in the cards sooner than practically all outside the organization initially thought.

If Liljegren hits the ground running once he finally returns from injury, who knows which jersey the kid will be wearing once April rolls around.

Thanks for reading! Part two is out later this week.

All stats courtesy of theahl.com

All gifs & footage courtesy of AHLtv.com