The Toronto Maple Leafs training camp officially starts tomorrow.
Today was media day, and we got to hear from Mike Babcock and Kyle Dubas. We heard about Mitch Marner, Frederik Andersen’s load-management, and the next captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The team is opening this years camp with 75 players, which is not including Marner.
Dubas opened his press conference by saying that after media day, the Leafs will be “radio silent” until they get a deal finalized. A contract could get done today, or it could go all the way to October 2nd, which is likely to be the deadline.
After the 2nd of October, the cap starts to shrink day by day, eventually they will have no room to fit him under without making further roster decisions.
Dubas even went as far as defending the Leafs star winger saying he’s an important player, (which he is) and a great person. Both Dubas and all of the players are optimistic that a deal will get done before the deadline.
Then, there was Mike Babcock.
I hope everyone missed Babcock as an interview subject, because I sure did. The Leafs head coach walked in and started trolling the media right away before getting down to business. Babcock spoke about Marner, the captaincy (which they all but named in the presser) and load management.
Let’s start off with Marner: Babcock said to just worry about the players you have. He didn’t want to be the one to speak about the negotiations and what he thinks.
Babcock went into more depth about Leafs next captain and who it could be, strongly implying it would be Matthews.
Of course, it’s not set in stone and it’s possible it won’t be Matthews. While Babcock and Dubas gave hints that there probably will be a captain this season, this was likely the biggest hint of all. The Leafs GM said, the announcement would likely not be during training camp.
Then, there’s load management. We witnessed the wear and tear that was put on Andersen’s body after playing 60 games last season. Babcock wasn’t shy in regards to speaking about the topic of the Leafs goaltending, “We have to make the playoffs. We can all agree that’s the priority.”
It’s going to be interesting watching how this years training camp unfolds. The Marner negotiations, the Leafs next captain and the likely six spots open for players to try and make will all make for an exciting camp.
With all of the questions surrounding Marner signing and the captaincy being announced, which one do you think happens first? And, which players do you think fill the six open spots?