Toronto Maple Leafs All-Decade Team Roundtable

The Toronto Maple Leafs have not had a good defensive-core in the entirety of my life, for most of our lives, and better yet in the 2010’s.

Currently, the Leafs D-core sits around league average and the current group is easily the best the decade has seen other than the few games that Jake Muzzin and Jake Gardiner both dressed up for in the 2018-2019 season.

The struggles of finding a reliable defenseman have been preached by the media on countless occasions and they still are to this day.

With this in mind let’s take a look at my all-decade team lineup;

Kaberle-Rielly

Gardiner-Phaneuf

Muzzin-Franson

Scratched-Dermott

First pairing

Thomas Kaberle rounds out the top pairing as an easy choice for me, as he is a clear top-pairing defenseman even in his later years of being member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Kaberle put up some stellar results on a crappy team at the end of his tenure and deserves more respect for his ability to be a reliable defenseman which Toronto Maple Leafs fans know is hard to find.

Kaberle’s success is mostly because of his offensive ability similar to other players on this list, but to me, he had the hardest situation out of any player to put up points but still found a way to do so.

Morgan Rielly the closest Toronto Maple Leafs defensemen to winning a Norris of the decade.

Although Rielly truly does struggle defensively he finds himself on the top of the team because of his insane athleticism and ability to get away from opponents and create room for himself.

Rielly is among the longest-tenured Leafs of the decade and is a great player on and off the ice and was essentially captain from when Phaneuf was traded to when Tavares was named captain.

Second pairing

Jake Gardiner is an automatic pick on this list, the guy played for the team through both eras of the decade and was a stellar defenseman throughout the time period.

If I were to rank a player in terms of overall contributions to the team over the decade, Gardiner would be a top of that list. The severity he was underappreciated and undervalued is astonishing to me, he is such an effective defenseman even when you factor in he will make a mistake every 5 or so games the pros heavily outweighed the cons, the guy was a rock for the Leafs.

Dion Phaneuf the man that was traded for to be a number one defensemen for the Leafs but really was only a number 3 kind of guy during his time here.

Abide those circumstances, he was still an effective player and most notably captain for the team. Phaneuf would play an absurd about of minutes in all situations for the team, was a core piece to this team for a few years.

He was one of the major faces of the decade for the team so it would be a disservice to leave him off the list.

Third Pairing

Jake Muzzin was acquired by Kyle Dubas making up for among the biggest additions to the team of the decade.

A defenseman who can be dependable in both his own end and against top-competition is a clear player to make it onto the all-decade team. Muzzin is able to put up good results wherever he is put and is agreed upon by every fan on the team because of his ability to put up analytically good results while making big hits that can change the tempo of the game.

Cody Franson is another defenseman who was very effective in his time in Toronto and was almost underappreciated to a degree throughout the decade.

The 6″5 analytics darling put up some very respectable results, even on some awful teams (seems like a common theme). With Franson on the ice, the Leafs were able to outscore the opposition this is likely because of his underrated passing ability where he was able to put up high assist numbers throughout his career.

Must mention

Hainsey, Gunnarsson, Dermott