The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t been doing so hot lately.
Reeling from an embarrassing 6-2 loss to the last-place Ottawa Senators on Saturday night, questions have begun to swirl regarding the overall makeup of the team in recent days, most notably around whether or not reinforcements are needed to push Mike Babcock‘s squad to the finish line.
The name on the tip of everyone’s tongue at the moment is Rasmus Sandin; the wunderkind defence prospect currently torching his way through the AHL on the Toronto Marlies.
With injuries piling up on the big club and the postseason fast approaching, should Sandin be given a shot on the NHL stage? Or, is keeping him down the best course of action?
Both options have merit. So, over the next two days, I’ll be striving to answer that question from either side.
Enjoy.
The Case For Calling Sandin Up
He’s earned it. Full stop. There’s no other way to describe it.
What Rasmus Sandin has achieved as an 18-year-old (he turned 19 roughly two weeks ago) rookie defenceman in the AHL this season is nothing short of incredible. Carrying himself with a veteran-like poise practically from the onset, the 2018 first-rounder has been a revelation during his first spin throughout North American professional hockey, even managing to gain the full trust of his coach, Sheldon Keefe, in the process, as well.
That is not an insignificant accomplishment, mind you. Fellow hopefuls like Travis Dermott and, even, Calle Rosen had to wait at least until their second years to earn the coveted moniker of “Keefe Favourite™”.
Sandin broke through in half of one.
Is he ready? Well, thanks to a sterling 3-assist effort on Sunday afternoon, Sandin now sits at 23 points on the year; good enough for 13th in AHL rookie scoring amongst defencemen. There is a caveat, however. Of the 12 names before Sandin’s on that list, 10 have logged a minimum of 50 games thus far and 7 have broken into the 60s already.
Sandin, on the other hand, has played 36.
If points-per-game is more your speed – and it should be, especially in this case – Sandin jumps all the way up to 6th, with a 0.64 PPG nearly matching that of Erik Brannstrom – the consensus top defence prospect outside the NHL – whose own clip sits a tad higher at 0.67.
Brannstrom, a 2017 pick, is a year older than Sandin, too.
This is where the Leafs have arrived at with their prized prospect. Sandin’s offensive production is so tantalizing at the moment, that it has reached a point where it transcends the boundaries of the current season altogether and must now be discussed in historical context.
So, let’s do exactly that.
According to data from QuantHockey, if Sandin sat out all 13 remaining games on the Marlies’ schedule, he would still finish this season as the 11th highest scoring 18-year-old in AHL history. No, not the highest scoring defenceman. The highest scoring player. Period.
Having already shattered the American League record for points-per-game by an 18-year-old defenceman – set last season by fellow teammate and occasional defence partner, Timothy Liljegren – Sandin is now 7th in that metric, regardless of position, and theoretically could slide into 6th by year’s end.
If that weren’t enough, with his next point, Sandin will effectively leapfrog Slava Voynov to become the highest scoring u19 defenceman in AHL history. It took Voynov 61 games to earn that record. Sandin could break it in nearly half the time.
Mainly, by doing things like this.
And this:
Regardless of how bullish Leafs management seems willing to play this, they still face a vital choice regarding how they handle Sandin moving forward.
Keeping him on the Marlies certainly seems like the prudent, process-based move Kyle Dubas has long championed for. Then again, when a prospect begins etching their name in the record books, a promotion should normally be somewhere around the corner.
This is not the case of a promising youngster merely coasting by on talent alone, either. Lost in all of his recent success is the fact that the past few months have not been easy for Sandin, with injuries and a lack of stability forcing him to perform in spite of some less-than-ideal circumstances outside of his control.
Not only did Sandin miss extended stretches on two separate occasions with various ailments – 9 games with a sprained thumb and another 10 with a sprained elbow – his AHL tenure was then interrupted when Team Sweden came calling in mid-December for the World Junior Championships. And once the tournament concluded, even, it still remained unclear for quite some time as to whether or not Sandin would return to the Marlies or head back to Sweden.
That would be difficult for any prospect to navigate, let alone an 18-year-old kid living on his own for the first time in his young life. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the past two months have been Sandin’s lone stretch of stability of 2018-19.
Just look at what he’s done with it.
The strategy of keeping prospects down on the farm is typically done to ensure their battle-readiness for when the parent club eventually gives them the call. If that’s the case with Sandin, then he may have already earned one, with an extended playoff run being the lone test he’s yet to face this season and, ultimately, pass with flying colours.
Sandin logged close 30 minutes in each game of the Marlies’ recent three-in-three stretch this past weekend, according to Keefe. Throughout the roughly two-and-a-half-day-trip, he compiled 6 assists to extend his point streak to 7 games, giving him a whopping 11 points over that span.
Name a high-pressure situation, and there’s a good chance Sandin faces it head-on.
Anchoring the point on a Marlies’ power-play which currently ranks fourth league-wide, he’s become a steadying presence on their penalty kill, as well, while routinely beginning any overtime period the team happens to take part in.
In the dying minutes of a one-or-two-score game, Sandin can be found right in the middle of the action, defending the lead.
Circling back to the big club, there is now a vacancy at their third pairing’s LHD position. For Leafs management, this puts them directly at a crossroads. Given the parameters of their contention window and the circumstances currently at hand, Dubas & Co. must ask themselves the question; what gives us the best chance to win?
When it comes to finding answers, injuries have whittled the field down to either Martin Marincin or Ramsus Sandin.
Take age out of the equation for a moment. Effectively, this boils down to whether or not Marincin gives the Toronto Maple Leafs their best chance to win a Stanley Cup in 2019, which is assuredly difficult to answer considering how Marincin is the only applicant for the position to have seen NHL ice.
Funnily enough, that is exactly why Sandin should get a shot.
The Leafs already know what they have in Marincin, having endured three years of sample size through which to judge his ceiling. Sandin has never been granted an opportunity to prove himself on hockey’s biggest stage yet, and with just 10 games remaining in the regular season and Toronto’s playoff birth all but set in stone, what better time than the present is there to give him one?
It’s not as if premature graduations, be them temporary or not, lack precedent, either.
The Boston Bruins recalled a 19-year-old Charlie McAvoy for their playoff run in 2017 and McAvoy then went on to reward them by nabbing 3 assists in 6 games. At the time, McAvoy was entering the NHL almost directly from the collegiate ranks, with a 4-game stint with AHL Providence his lone taste professional experience up to that point.
Sandin, on the other hand, has faced grown men all season long, and to tremendous results. This is someone who has been playing in the same city while deploying practically the exact same systems as his parent club Maple Leafs since late-September.
What’s the difference? If anything, an argument could be made that Sandin is, in fact, better prepared for NHL action at this very moment than McAvoy was at the same juncture.
But, who knows? The only way to get a definitive answer is to give him a shot.
Thanks for reading! Part two drops tomorrow.
Additional stats courtesy of TheAHL.com
All gifs & footage courtesy of AHLtv.com