The Leafs Need Wayne Simmonds
This take might be less about the New Jersey Devils tough guy and more about the old school mentality that toughness supersedes skill.
Hockey is a physical sport, there’s no doubt about it, but it takes more than grit and determination to put the puck past the best goaltenders on the planet.
The Maple Leafs have a roster that is designed to outskate their opponents. The need for calamitous body checks ended in the National Hockey League when Don Cherry stopped hawking his Rock’Em Sock’Em videos.
Physically decimating opponents doesn’t win games now that the rules are more strictly enforced in the NHL.
Prior to the change in penalty standards in 2013, one could make an intelligible argument that enforcers needed to roam the ice. Now, that bellicose position has been usurped by soft hands and lightning feet.
Starting last season and continuing into this one, Leafs fans have called for Dubas to ship out players like Kasperi Kapanen or Andreas Johnsson in exchange for a Wayne Simmonds who has massively declined from his former peak.
While he might be an imposing figure who adds sandpaper to his team, that’s about all he could provide to the Buds.
Simmonds has 19 points this season while averaging over 15 minutes per game. If he were in Toronto lineup he’d live on the fourth line.
Trading second or third line players for a fourth-liner is just woefully poor decision making that the Maple Leafs wouldn’t do because remember, Dubas is not a terrible general manager.