Coming up with a list of the most underrated Toronto Maple Leafs of all-time is a daunting task.
When you consider the 100 plus years that the Toronto Maple Leafs and the team’s forerunners have been in the National Hockey League, you’ve got a lot of players to choose from.
However, As I can recall much of the last forty years of team history, I will keep my attention on more recent times.
All of the underrated Toronto Maple Leafs mentioned below spent a significant period of time with the team (sorry Nikolai Borschevsky), and in my opinion, have not received the credit they deserve for donning the blue and white with distinction. Here they are in no particular order:
1. Todd Gill
Gill was a versatile defenceman who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs during the late 80s and 90s.
At the beginning of his career, Gill joined a Leafs team that was among the worst in team history. Gill was an offensive-minded defenceman who, like Jake Gardiner of recent years, was criticized for the odd defensive gaff.
Despite Gill’s occasional shortcomings defensively, he was a gutsy player who played with grit and willingly dropped his gloves to scrap with all willing opponents including those much larger than himself. Gill was a good puck-rushing defenceman who scored 43 points during the 1993 season. Gill hated to lose and in his post-game interviews following Leaf losses he displayed genuine regret and frustration.
2. Brian Glennie
Defenceman Brian Glennie was a shut down artist and a master of the hip check who never produced a lot of points, but wasn’t expected to as he played at a time when Bobby Orr was just beginning to revolutionize the role of the defenceman in the NHL.
As a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he didn’t score much, but his habit of crushing opposing forwards crossing the blue line was a sure way to keep the goals against down. Glennie sadly passed away this past February.
3. Bill Derlago
In a season that has seen Auston Matthews take a serious run at Rick Vaive’s all-time record for goals by a Toronto Maple Leafs in a season, thoughts of many older members of Leafs Nation have turned back to Captain Vaive and his scoring exploits during his time spent as a bud. Sadly, many people seem to have forgotten the man who set up Vaive for many of those goals, Bill Derlago.
Derlago was a shifty and swift-skating centre who joined the Leafs with Vaive via a trade from Vancouver for Jerry Butler and Tiger Williams, one of the greatest trades in Maple Leafs’ history. In six seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Derlago tallied nearly a point-per-game and helped turn Vaive into a superstar. In 1982, Derlago recorded 84 points, his finest season ever.
4. Steve Thomas
Even young members of Leafs Nation are well aware of the exploits of one Wendel Clark, a power forward extraordinaire, who could score, hit, and fight with the best of them. Wendel Clark’s place as one of the most-revered Toronto Maple Leafs ever is well deserved.
However, Clark had a rival on the buds during the late eighties in the power forward department in the form of teammate Steve “Stumpy” Thomas, another hard-hitting and high-scoring winger who could single-handedly turn a game around with a big hit or a big goal.
Thomas played six seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs during two three-year stints, one in the late eighties and then again in the late 90s.
In Thomas’s third season with the buds in 1987, he scored 35 goals and recorded 114 penalty minutes-a significant number of which were fighting majors.
Thomas was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in 87’ and contributed his scoring and pugilistic talents to the Blackhawks for several memorable years before moving on to Long Island and the Islanders, the New Jersey Devils and then back to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 90s’.
5. Darcy Tucker
Darcy Tucker was another Toronto Maple Leaf from the Wendel Clark/Steve Thomas mold who was instrumental in keeping the Leafs competitive during the early part of this century.
Tucker combined tenacity with truculence and a modicum of offensive flair to serve as one of the league’s better two-way forwards. in the early 2000s, Tucker was a constant thorn in the side of every opponent he faced and was a constant joy to watch.
Honorable mentions: Pat Boutette, Luke Richardson, Tom Fergus, Mark Osbourne, Dmitri Yushkevich, Bill Berg, Mikael Grabovski, James Reimer, Dave Ellet, Dion Phaneuf and Jake Gardiner.