Toronto Maple Leafs: Trade Deadline Duality Part One

This year’s trade deadline was a relatively quiet one for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

For the most part, the Leafs opted to stand pat on deadline day, with their only activity coming in the form of a minor move which sent Par Lindholm to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Nic Petan.

The reactions to this amongst the fanbase have certainly been mixed.

Those who watched yesterday’s round-the-clock coverage with bated breath in the hopes of the Leafs putting together a blockbuster to net the RHD of their dreams went home angry, while those who believed that only minor adjustments were needed got exactly what they came for.

There is merit to both sides of the aisle here. Let’s make a case for each.

Today, we’ll focus on the more pessimistic angle of things.

Why the Leafs’ Deadline Performance was Subpar

The Leafs entered deadline day with a single glaring weakness; depth at right-D. This is not a new development, either. And despite boasting one of the most formidable rosters in the entire NHL, the trade deadline served as management’s one final opportunity to remedy it before the postseason began.

Of course, that did not happen.

For the second consecutive year, the same blemishes which inevitably kickstarted Toronto’s annual postseason demise against the Bruins linger on.

The Leafs are, once again, almost certainly destined to saddle a soon-to-be-38-year-old Ron Hainsey with shutting down their top opposition over the course of a 7-game series. Nikita Zaitsev, barring an unforeseen heel turn from Mike Babcock, will be given his standard top-4 usage and operate as a central component of the team’s penalty kill. The breadth of their talent aside, the right side of the Leafs blueline still consists of only one defender playing his optimal position and two left-shots doing the opposite.

Case in point; Babcock’s toys are still around. And for as long as they remain, there is simply no guarantee that this staggeringly deep pool of talent will ever be used to its full extent.

Considering the options that were available, this is less than ideal.

Nick Jensen, for one, was acquired by the Washington Capitals for a 2020 second-round pick and defenceman Madison Bowey mere days prior to the deadline. A mid-round pick and fringe roster player is a significantly low price to pay for the services of a 28-year-old right-shot defenceman producing sterling underlying numbers on a bottom-feeding roster, and looks even better when in the context of Jensen’s 4-year, $10 million sweetheart contract extension he signed soon after.

What is Toronto’s equivalent to Bowey in that package? Andreas Borgman?

Borgman may very well be with the Marlies at the moment. But he is still the same age as Bowey, played 48 games for the Leafs a year ago in almost identical usage to Bowey’s 51, and put forth better numbers in both even strength CF/60 and just good old fashioned points.

If the difference between acquiring Jensen and standing pat was the inclusion of Borgman, there is simply no excuse for opting for the latter. None.

But it’s not like the Leafs haven’t made any moves at all.

The addition of Jake Muzzin, of course, has stabilized a portion of the defensive troubles thus far, and could theoretically serve as Toronto’s version of a deadline move that just happened to have been made before it. Only, that depends on a few factors. Namely, usage.

In the 13 games he’s spent under Babcock, Muzzin has seen his ice time dip from the 21:32 he clocked in Los Angeles to the 18:56 he’s been given as a Leaf. This is the beginning of a thoroughly undesirable trend. Even during last night’s divisional clash with the Buffalo Sabres, Muzzin wound up placing fourth among Leaf defencemen in total minutes behind both Hainsey and Zaitsev, in a game where the outcome carried with it significant playoff implications.

Zaitsev served a 2-minute minor that cut into his total, as well. He still saw 2 more shifts than Muzzin.

If Babcock is intent on using Muzzin as his #4 defender, behind two vastly inferior options to boot, then what was the point of even trading for him in the first place?

Kyle Dubas paid a hefty price to pry Muzzin from the Kings – forfeiting Toronto’s 2019 first-round pick, a B-level prospect in Carl Grundstrom, and the rights to Sean Durzi. With the Leafs’ farm system already depleted, management made the conscious decision to deplete it even further for the purpose of landing the top-pair defenceman they had been coveting for so long.

That price means nothing if Muzzin doesn’t actually play on the top pair.

For a while, though, he was doing just that. It was only until Babcock pulled the plug on the Muzzin-Rielly experiment after a measly 6 games, in fact, that the Leafs began once again succumbing to their old habits.

As for the deadline moves Dubas did make, swapping out Lindholm for Petan is fine. Then again, that’s only if a) Petan plays markedly better than he did in Winnipeg and b) Babcock actually uses him.

Both of those caveats are far from guaranteed.

In the heat of a divisional arms race, the Leafs needed to swing for a player that even Babcock couldn’t find an excuse to not utilize. They didn’t. And that’s why, to some fans, their deadline performance fell flat.

Thanks for reading! Check back tomorrow for a far more optimistic side of things.

All stats courtesy of hockeyreference.com

All salary information courtesy of capfriendly.com