The Toronto Maple Leafs are gifted with great young players.
The Toronto Maple Leafs rebuild started with three franchise players in Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner.
But what is really crazy is how many other less, but still great, young players they’ve developed to go along with the big guns.
Travis Dermott, Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen all project to be top-of-the-lineup impact players in the NHL, which has given the Toronto Maple Leafs a ridiculous young core.
But the fun isn’t stopping.
The Leafs have Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren and Jeremy Bracco all on the way, giving them three more potential solid NHL players.
Those three might not make an impact this year, but there is one player who is definitely going to: Trevor Moore.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Trevor Moore
The undrafted 24 year-old left-winger made his NHL debut last season for the Leafs and did not seem out of place, scoring two goals and eight points in 25 games of mostly 4th line duty.
The point totals don’t seem like a lot, but considering his low ice-time and bad linemates (Gauthier and Ennis were his two most common) it’s actually quite impressive.
Moore also added a solid 39 points in 46 games for the Marlies in the AHL.
This year Moore will be in competition with Ilya Mikheyev and an assortment of recently signed potential roster additions (Shore, Spezza, Petan, Agostino etc) for a spot on the roster.
With Zach Hyman starting the year on the I.R as he recovers from a knee injury, Moore may get a chance to win a job with Tavares and Marner.
Whether or not he secures a prime role, Moore is a spark plug who has got the potential to be in impact player if he can score regularly in the NHL.
Although he played sparingly last year, and only for 25 games, Moore did have a few impressive things about his game. For one, he scored at a points per 60 rate of over 2, which is impressive. I doubt he’s a legit first line scorer, but it’s still a good sign.
Secondly, Trevor Moore posted very good stats whenever he got away from Frederik Guathier and Tyler Ennis.
Of course the sample sizes are small here, but Moore appears well suited to play with the speedy, offensive oriented players on the Toronto Maple Leafs, and because of that, he could be the next in a seemingly never ending line of breakout stars.
If he can earn enough ice time to stay above the fourth line, a 20 goal season is not out of his reach. At the very least, he should be a nice upgrade over Connor Brown.