Toronto Maple Leafs: The Marlies Forward Corps is Stacked

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced the signings of seven different players at once yesterday.

Seven. At the same time. I didn’t even think you were allowed to do that. And yet, the Maple Leafs don’t care about rules. You should know that by now.

Joining the fold are *takes a deep breath* Nick Shore, Garrett Wilson, Pontus Aberg, Kalle Kossila, Tyler Gaudet, Kenny Agostino, and Kevin Gravel. Three of those seven we already knew. Reports of Shore, Agostino and Gravel’s signings had been publicly bandied about by insiders alike for quite some time following July 1st, which left only a waiting game for the Maple Leafs to became cap compliant before officially announcing them.

To make a long story short: Acquiring David Clarkson‘s dead-money contract from the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday accomplished exactly that.

Of course, not all of these players will spend the majority of the 2019-20 season up with the Maple Leafs. The most likely scenario is that less than half of them ultimately will, in fact, with Aberg, Shore and Agostino presenting themselves to be the most plausible candidates for securing depth or periphery roles.

Their promotions would then leave Gaudet, Kossila, Wilson and Gravel as filler for the Marlies. And what filler they will be. Although, for the sake of brevity, let’s focus our efforts specifically on the forward corps for right now.

Assuming that all three forwards listed above successfully clear waivers following training camp and head straight to Coca-Cola Coliseum, the Marlies can ice upfront attack along the lines of:

Marchment – Brooks – Bracco

Timashov – Kossila – Korshkov

Wilson – Engvall – Archibald

Gaudet – Ferguson – Brazeau

By AHL standards, that is ridiculous; not to mention leaving the Marlies plenty of room to experiment and adapt at their leisure.

First; the obvious. A Mason Marchment – Adam Brooks – Jeremy Bracco top line is all but set in stone right now. Each of the three are coveted prospects by the Maple Leafs organization in their own right who have seen their respective developmental paths take steep upward trajectories in recent years and – save for Bracco, who already did so in 2018-19 – could truly take that needed next step as the Marlies’ newly-crowned offensive weapons.

Lines two through four, however, are completely fluid.

If choosing to view him purely through an AHL-specific lens, the addition of Kossila, a 26-year-old centre, is a slam dunk. Kossila has spent three full seasons in the American League since he turned pro out of the NCAA’s St. Cloud State back in 2015. Kossila’s stat lines from those three seasons are something to behold: 48 points in 65 games in 2016-17; 54 points in 55 games in 2017-18; 35 points in 44 games in 2018-19.

At the AHL level, that is downright spectacular and could even see Kossila take a stab at filling the hole within the Marlies top-six left gaping by the recently-departed Chris Mueller, who finished this past year a mere one goal off of the league lead with 33.

Kossila is not a prolific goalscorer in the vein of Mueller – 21 is his career-best total – but that might be perfectly okay. Rather, it’s the presence of Dmytro Timashov and, especially, Egor Korshkov on either of his wings that read as perfect fits, giving Kossila two distinct running mates who qualify as “finishers”.

Like I said; there is room for experimentation. So let’s get freaky.

The Pierre Engvall Centre Experiment™ went about as swimmingly as anyone within the organization could have hoped for last season; not only elevating the potential career ceiling of an intriguing young player, but giving the Maple Leafs a 6’4 prospect with offensive upside and innate defensive ability at arguably their pipeline’s weakest position group, as well.

So successful was this experiment, in fact, that there is a real possibility Engvall does not sit on the third line for very long, if at all. Not if Sheldon Keefe has anything to say about, that is.

Keefe is a coach notorious for his well-worn strategy of thrusting inexperienced prospects into enhanced and difficult situations right from the get-go to determine whether they can sink or swim. An unexpected appearance from a Growlers call-up or NCAA tryout flier on one of the Marlies’ top two lines is usually a pretty telling indicator for how Keefe views that player.

Engvall is not a rookie – at least, not anymore – but his time spent down the middle has been brief enough that it warrants a Keefe-like push.

Naturally, the thought of heaping Engvall’s plate with top-six minutes at centre directly from game one despite the 23-year-old having not even played a full season at the position is not all that surprising. And, if Engvall keeps his head above water, he and Kossila would likely swap duty on their respective lines, while possibly shuffling the construction of the wingers, as well.

To keep this as simple as possible, though, let’s assume the depth chart above is the one the Marlies intent on going with.

The best asset a young player with minimal experience in their given role can have is linemates who possess the opposite. Engvall, in this case, can consider himself lucky. The duo of Garret Wilson and Darren Archibald – 28 and 29-years-old, respectively – carry between them a combined 16 years of professional experience.

In the case of Wilson, as I explained here earlier this week, his 6’2 and roughly 200 pound-frame may project him to the masses as a grinder-type from a bygone era. But there is more than meets the eye with this former Panthers fourth-rounder. In fact, Wilson has actually racked up points in the AHL at a clip of 0.76 per-game since 2014-15, with last season seeing him muster an impressive 18 points in 18 games for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Penguins.

Pair Wilson alongside another veteran in Archibald – who is coming off a 33-point output in 51 games for Utica with assuredly inferior linemates than he’ll have in Toronto – and the two soon-to-be greybeards ultimately equip the relatively green Engvall with a decent supporting cast.

Which now brings us to the fourth line; the most interesting of all.

Is Tyler Gaudet much of a needle-mover? Honestly, no. Not at all.

The 26-year-old centre owns a mere 20 games in the NHL to this point and joins the Marlies with a career-high AHL point total of 25 – which he earned in 51 games this past year. Gaudet has also failed to crack double digits in goals in all but one of his six seasons in the AHL and, albeit likely a product of less-than-favourable usage, owns some truly putrid possession numbers from his brief cameos with the Arizona Coyotes.

Then again, the Maple Leafs didn’t sign Gaudet to move the needle. Expecting as much would be fruitless. Rather, they view him as the perfect example of stop-gap depth filler with which a team like the Marlies can use when stocking the periphery of their roster.

Gaudet’s experience in the pro ranks will almost certainly be of help to who are perhaps the two most intriguing and under-the-radar prospects in Toronto’s system: Brady Ferguson and Justin Brazeau.

Brazeau can be considered the more well-known of the pair, thanks to his winding career path and hulking size, but Ferguson is just as interesting of a flier, too. The 24-year-old centre left the cosy confines of the NCAA in late-2018 for the Marlies as the top point-getter in Robert Morris University’s history, then proceeding to earn four points during his brief five-game AHL tryout to close out that year before decimating the ECHL in 2018-19 with 30 goals, 28 assists, 58 points and, of course, one Kelly Cup Championship.

The Maple Leafs almost certainly want to give Ferguson – who should be viewed as a more important piece to their overall future than Gaudet – consistent reps at his natural position of centre. That would shift Gaudet to the wing, therein lessening the offensive load he would otherwise carry on a frequently-used Marlies’ fourth line and allow him to refine his focus.

Or, as is so common in this wild world we call hockey, none of these pairings ultimately happen and the Marlies’ depth chart looks completely different when the puck drops on their season in October versus Belleville.

Frankly, that would be perfectly okay. We haven’t even made it through July yet, after all. The Marlies don’t really need to solidify their forward group at the moment. They have options.

And when it comes to the concept of organizational depth, few luxuries are as coveted as that.