Digging Deep into the 46 Players the Toronto Maple Leafs Signed This Week
In what has to go down as one of the strangest public relations announcements in NHL history, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed seven players yesterday.
Obviously we knew about some of these already – Nick Shore, Kenny Agostino – but it was nevertheless surprising when the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they had signed seven players.
While most of these names are either already known or two-way contracts for no-namer players, the surprising pick up of Pontus Aberg was pretty cool.
The reason for not officially announcing contracts until now is pretty obviously to do with the salary cap, which seems to get more complicated by the day, but I’ll leave those details to the nerds – they don’t really concern me. There’s really only so many details about the salary cap a normal person needs to know.
I want to talk about the players
Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Seven
https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs/status/1154058952319127552
So what do we have here?
Let’s dig deep into the Toronto Maple Leafs free agent grab bag and see what we get.
Pontus Aberg
Aberg signed a one-year deal with the Leafs for 700K.
Aberg gives the Toronto Maple Leafs a bit of depth on the left wing, and he’ll definitely help the Marlies.
He’s 25 and while his 11 goals in 37 games with the Ducks probably make people excited, you should note that he also scored 1 goal in 22 games after being traded.
The Leafs targeted him because he’s cheap, he’s an NHL player, he can sometimes drive play a bit, and he is probably OK defensively. They did not sign him because they expect him to contribute offensively.
Even at the NHL level, Aberg has never been a point-per-game player. His half season with the Ducks where he was really good appears to be a complete outlier from the rest of his career and he was garbage when he went to the Wild.
I’d expect to see him playing for the Marlies, at least to start the year. The fact is that the Toronto Maple Leafs are absolutely stacked with depth players, and Aberg will be hard pressed to make the team.
Nick Shore
Shore is the cream of the crop here. His banishment to the KHL last year was almost Cody Franson levels of mystery and stupidity.
I even wrote over a year ago about how the Toronto Maple Leafs should sign him, so I was pleasantly surprised when they did.
Shore doesn’t score much, but he’s pretty good at everything else.
He should be shoe-in to make the roster, and with Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Nylander, Keroot, Spezza, and Shore, the Leafs have seven of their twelve forwards as natural centres.
You can’t overstate how much of an advantage that is. Nick Shore is a fantastic signing and further evidence of Kyle Dubas’ genius.
Kenny Agostino
Agostino is the kind of signing (along with half these guys, to be honest) that makes the Predators signing of Colton Sissons so profoundly stupid.
Why in the hell haven’t NHL general managers learned that bottom six players are pretty much interchangeable to the point where you shouldn’t spend any money on them?
If Dubas signing a half dozen of them for the league minimum doesn’t illustrate this point perfectly, I don’t know what will.
Sissons might be better than Kenny Agostino (maybe) but he’s certainty isn’t “lock him up for six extra years” better.
When a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs can sign an entire bottom-six worth of free-agents in one off-season, I think it’s pretty clear that there is no value in paying Sissons more than the league minimum, or giving him term.
Agostino is a depth player that might make the Leafs opening night roster, but who will definitely be better than 99% of players a team’s can insert in case of injury.
He’s not just an NHL player, he’s a pretty effective one. If the Leafs paired him with Nick Shore and Jason Spezza on the fourth line, they’d have a good third line and the best fourth line in the NHL.
Tyler Gaudet
Gaudet is a player who has 43 even-strength minutes in the NHL over the last three years, so it’s hard to say what he brings to the table.
He doesn’t score in the AHL, and he is 26 – so the answer is probably not much.
This is a depth player for the Marlies who has a chance to play well and get called up in case of emergency.
My guess would be that he brings a lot of what Nick Shore has brought to NHL teams, but to AHL teams.
His brief stint in the NHL – extremely small sample size – indicates decent defensive abilities.
Gaudet is signed for one year at 700K and he’ll definitely help the Marlies and has an outside chance of being an all-right NHL player should the circumstances arise. (Though with the Leafs depth, he is highly unlikely to make the NHL this year).
Kalle Kossila
26, undrafted and undersized, Kossila has played briefly in the NHL, and has a point-per-game season to his name in the AHL.
He and Kenny Agostino are the only players out of the seven signed on Wednesday that the Toronto Maple Leafs gave two years to.
He’ll make 700K and almost certainly start with the Marlies.
He is a decent enough depth option, but stands little chance of making the jam packed Toronto Maple Leafs.
The depth of the Leafs is preposterous at this point, but Kossila is another player who seems to have defensive upside even if he’s not going to really score at the NHL level.
Should he be forced into the Leafs NHL lineup, he’ll probably be a perfectly find fourth line player. I don’t think he has much upside at his age, but you never know when an anomaly will come along and surprise you.
Kevin Gravel
In the last three years, Gravel has played about one full season’s worth of NHL 5v5 hockey. He doesn’t score at all, but he does put up half-decent defensive numbers.
A classic bottom-six depth player, Gravel adds to the Leafs non-prospect depth on their blue line.
Along with Justin Holl, Martin Marincin, Andreas Borgman (technically I guess still a prospect), Ben Harpur and Codi Ceci, Gavel is a competent bottom pairing guy who can take up space while you wait for your good players to get back on the ice.
He’s not going to hurt you, but he’s not going to steal a top four spot either. (Well, I guess nothing is impossible, but it’s about as likely as Kenny Agostino winning a spot with Tavares).
Garrett Wilson
I laughed this week when I saw people getting excited about this acquisition, and then read that Garret Wilson scored less per minute than Roman Polak.
Good times!
That’s probably not a good thing if you’re hoping to make this Toronto Maple Leafs roster. Fortunately while he is about as good as scoring goals in the NHL as I am, Wilson is actually a half-decent player.
His RAPM chart (Evolving-hockey) shows a player who does pretty much everything OK but score. Since the Leafs are likely fifty miles ahead of the next best offensive team in the NHL, it won’t hurt them to dress an offensive black-hole like Wilson if his other skills are helpful.
Wilson brings solid defense and some grit to a lineup that otherwise lacks it. When competing for a spot on the roster, there aren’t too many other options for what Wilson brings. Mason Marchment isn’t considered an NHL player, and people are longing to put him into the lineup, so maybe Wilson has a chance.
That said, Kerfoot, Kapanen, Mikheyev, Spezza, Shore, Agostino, Hyman, Moore, and Petan are going to present a huge challenge for a player like Wilson.
Most likely he starts on the Marlies and is available for injury help.
Overall, you have to love what the Leafs are doing here. They’ve stacked their lineup with depth players and unlike other teams – Vancouver, Nashville, Pittsburgh etc – they haven’t spent any significant money or term on adding depth players.
Next. Leafs Top Ten Prospects Summer Update. dark
Kyle Dubas can’t be popular among his peers, since his main accomplishment is making them look like idiots on a daily basis.