Why the Toronto Maple Leafs and TJ Brodie Are a Match Made in Heaven

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a hole to fill on their right side of defense.

In the summer of 2019, the Toronto Maple Leafs almost landed their highly coveted, top pair defensemen in a deal that would have sent TJ Brodie to Toronto and Nazem Kadri to the Calgary Flames.

Instead, once Kadri utilized his no-trade clause to nix the trade to the Flames, Kyle Dubas pivoted to the Colorado Avalanche and acquired Tyson Barrie.

Almost 11 months later and the TJ Brodie-to-Toronto deal still leaves Leaf fans wondering what this team could have looked like if Dubas had acquired the Chatham, Ontario native.

Well, this upcoming offseason Toronto management is going to have another chance to sign Brodie and I, for one, would pounce at the opportunity to sign the 31-year old.

If Alex Pietrangelo were not a free agent this upcoming offseason, TJ Brodie would immediately shoot right up to the top of my targets for Toronto.

Brodie Offensively

Watching the Ontario native play, his puck-moving skills are instantly noticeable. He has a tremendous first pass and the proficient skating skills to jump up in the rush on a breakout.

With the high-powered offense Toronto has, it is important to have skilled players on the backend that complement the big-name forwards – something Brodie does strongly.

The Ontario native ranks in the 97th percentile and the 91st percentile in secondary assist and estimated shot assists rates respectively (stats; mapleleafshotstove.com).

Brodie Defensively

Although Brodie has above-average offensive skills, his calling card is the excellent work he does in the defensive end.

Having anchored the Calgary blueline since 2011 – 12, TJ Brodie has been a mainstay in the Flame’s top four, developing terrific top-line chemistry with Mark Giordano.

Back in January of 2019, Sportsnet released an article trying to identify the league’s best defensive defensemen. TJ Brodie was named in the top 10, with the authors citing his monstrous ability to “remove the puck from his opponents”.

Furthermore, Brodie’s play driving is excellent. Specifically, his expected goals against suppression, ranking in 89th percentile league-wide (stats; mapleleafshotstove.com).

Brodie’s Fit in Toronto

TJ Brodie is exactly what the Toronto Maple Leafs need – a skilled top four defensemen, who can play against the opposing teams’ best players.

Brodie ranks in the 85th percentile in heavy ice time facing elite forwards (stats; mapleleafshotstove.com), and logs a ton of minutes in the defensive end – for his career, Brodie has started 52% of his faceoffs in the defensive end (stats; hockey-referece.com).

For what it is worth, Toronto’s best defensive defensemen, Jake Muzzin, has started 52% of his faceoffs in the defensive end in his career with Toronto (stats; hockey-reference).

The Perfect Match 

Overall, the above stats prove TJ Brodie is not just an elite defensive defensemen, but an excellent two-way defensemen who dominates in his own end.

Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic wrote an article predicting individual player value ratings using the sites’ projected ‘Game Score Value Added’. The model uses the last three seasons as a frame of reference to predict players’ game score that then is translated to a win value.

Brodie registered with GSVA of 0.98, ahead of players such as Brett Pesce, raved about for his defensive skills, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, one of the top defenders in the league.

Evolving-hockey.com projects Brodie to land a 3 year, $4,909,000 deal this offseason, a contract very affordable for Toronto.

A couple of things should be noted – Brodie did have the Toronto Maple Leafs on his no-trade list at the trade deadline. However, this does not necessarily mean he does not want to play here.

I believe this can be attributed to the fact Toronto tried to acquire him during the 2019 offseason and putting Toronto on his no-trade list after the fact gives Brodie more control over where plays.

Also, although left-handed, Brodie has a ton of experience playing on the right side alongside Mark Giordano, and with Sheldon Keefe being a very open-minded coach, it is extremely likely he is willing to experiment playing two lefties on his top defensive pair.

With his ability to complement the high-powered, “Big Four” of Toronto, and his ability to excel in the defensive end, Brodie represents the ideal free agent target for Kyle Dubas.