Toronto Maple Leafs Roundtable: Most Disappointing Player This Season
The Toronto Maple Leafs are close to berthing a playoff spot.
With the ratification of the “return to play plan” by the NHL and the NHLPA, the Toronto Maple Leafs are 3 wins away from their fourth consecutive playoff appearance. Bringing the Toronto Maple Leafs closer to the playoffs then they were in March when the season was paused.
Yes, I know; “what are you talking about, Wilbert, they were in the third seed of the Atlantic division“.
Yes. But they were also madly inconsistent. Not to mention, injury-ridden. Make no mistake, they were a long way from closing the deal on a playoff spot. Even a great deal further away from being a playoff-contending team.
The Toronto Maple Leafs season was troubled, to say the least. It was an ongoing horrorshow up untill the glove save made by Fleury that ended Babcock’s tenure in Toronto.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Roster
The Toronto Maple Leafs bolster one of, if not the, strongest roster in the league. Especially when it comes to offensive power. However, after acquiring Barrie from Colorado, the Toronto Maple Leafs also bolster quite the talent on the blueline.
Yet, a lot of players were unable to meet expectations or were unable to improve under Mike Babcock. Even after his departure, some players were still playing below what could be expected, showing limited or no improvement.
That begged the question among the Editor in Leaf; “Who has been the most disappointing player so far?”
Let’s find out!
Jordan Maresky
The most disappointing Toronto Maple Leafs player this season was Timothy Liljegren.
The highly touted first-round pick defensemen had incredible comparisons heading into his draft year. Scouts had him ranked as the top defensemen in his draft class, ahead of players such as Miro Heiskanen and Cale Makar, and projected him to be a top-five pick.
Liljegren, however, was forced to miss the first two months of his draft-eligible season due to mononucleosis, causing his draft stock to fall and allow Toronto to pick him at #17.
Drawing comparisons to Erik Karlsson, Liljegren was praised for his modern skating ability, playmaking from the back end, and offensive prowess. Liljegren absolutely dominated the AHL. He put up 30 points this season in 40 games playing for the Toronto Marlies as a 21-year-old.
Erik Brannstrom, widely regarded as one of the best defensemen prospects in the game, was not even able to put up the same stats as Liljegren did in the minors. When the Swede got called up after Cody Ceci went down with an injury, many Leaf fans were excited to finally see the defensive prospect that had been pegged as a bonafide number 1 d-man.
Bouncing around between the AHL, the press box, and the Leafs’ third defensive pair, Liljegren only registered one assist in his 11 games, mostly playing in a heavily sheltered bottom-pairing role. Liljegren started 54% of his draws in the offensive zone while playing the majority of his even-strength minutes alongside fellow freshman and Swede, Rasmus Sandin.
Those 11 games showed Liljegren is still not ready for full NHL competition. He disappointed management this year and so he gets the nod as ‘most disappointing Leaf in 2019-20’.
Dylan Murphy
There’s no question that Cody Ceci is the worst player on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster.
For the role, he was assigned (stay at home d-man and staple on the penalty kill), he was an unmitigated disaster from day one.
He failed to clear the zone so many times that I legitimately lost count after the first week of the season. He caused turnovers at a rate that would make Jake Gardiner’s head spin.
He routinely “forgot” his net-front assignment and left opposing players wide-open for tap-in goals.
The only positives I can find in his existence on this team is that he blocked some shots by dropping into the butterfly and him being here for a single torturous year meant that Leafs Nation was freed of the burden of Nikita Zaitsev.
Given that the only positive thing I can possibly say regarding Ceci’s performance, he’s the obvious pick for the most disappointing player of the season.
Spencer Teixeira
Initially, when this question is presented, a couple of players come to mind given their self-destructive reputations (those being Tyson Barrie and Cody Ceci), which is admittedly understandable.
Neither Barrie nor Ceci had incredible seasons, but both of them were more effective than many, including me, gave them credit for.
Oddly enough, my pick for the worst player on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster seemed to have the opposite effect on Leafs nation. Frederik Gauthier, a 25-year-old 6’5 235lb Centreman, played in 61 of the Leafs’ 70 contests this season and scored seven goals and 12 points (3rd in NHL for players under 10mpg).
Gauthier, who struggled to find a place on Toronto’s full-time roster for the five seasons following his 20th overall selection in the 2013 entry draft, just finished his second full season with the Maple Leafs.
The results were, to be blunt, not good. Gauthier averaged a 43.9CF% at 5v5 (Ranked 542nd)), just 39.3CF% in all situations (556th), Gauthier was however very effective in the faceoff dot, winning 54.7% of draws (all situations-3rd on TOR, 26th in NHL).
One of his most discussed strengths, his physicality, was lacking as well, as Gauthier laid 66 hits this season (7th on TOR, 64th in NHL), less than Kasperi Kapanen, Steven Stamkos, T.J Oshie, and Johnathan Marchessault.
Gauthier also registered just 23 blocks (137th in NHL-14 less than finesse forward Mitch Marner) despite starting 71% of his shifts in the defensive end. (naturalstattrick.com).
Overall, Gauthier is just not a very impressive NHL player and lacks a lot of individual upsides that would warrant keeping him in a consistent playing role at this point in his career. (all stats per hockey-reference).
He is by far the most replaceable player on the Leafs’ roster in my personal opinion.
Wilbert Timmermans
Picking out disappointing players on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster from last season is like ordering shots during happy hour, bad decision juice all around, there’s hardly any good pickings on the shelf.
There’s plenty of poison to go around, really; Barrie, Ceci, Rielly, Kapanen, heck even Tavares was disappointing this year. For me, however, Marner was the most disappointing player of the season.
I know, I know, it’s considered a crime to criticize the city’s poster boy, and don’t get me wrong, Marner is an amazing player, really. However, he didn’t meet expectations, not by a long shot for me.
I think it’s fair to say you’d expect more from someone who signed a 6-year contract worth $10.893.000 dollars per year than what Marner delivered. Now in mind that the salary cap will stay at $81.5 million per year, that deal is looking more and more like a Stephen King novel to me, horrifying.
With his contract, you’re expecting numbers like Panarin and Kane put up. They put up better numbers on lesser teams than the Toronto Maple Leafs are right now. Marner is good, but I don’t see him living up to those expectations.
Marner put’s up great numbers, but it’s just not enough.
James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs are such a strong team that their worst players are all pretty good. Like the smart team that they are, the Leafs have stocked up on elite skilled players, and rounded out the bottom of their lineup with excellent depth pieces.
Do you really have a worst player when your fourth line is Clifford-Spezza and Engvall? Or when you have Rasmus Sandin and you are considering not even playing him?
The Leafs did have a few disappointments this year, however. Freddie Andersen had his worst year, and despite a solid month or two spread through out the season, he wasn’t able to live up to the previous couple years’ magic.
But if your worst player is your all-star goalie, how bad can you be? Still, even an average season from Andersen would have seen the Leafs finish a lot higher in the standings.
Same with Cody Ceci. Despite being an offensive black-hole and not really bring a whole lot more than some size and pedigree to the table, he’s not that bad.
Like Tyson Barrie, if you subtract the Mike Babcock games from his season, Ceci wasn’t all that bad. Babcock had him basically unsheltered on a top line, and it wasn’t working.
Afterwards though, even when Ceci went with Rielly, Keefe really leaned into Muzzin and Holl for defensive zone starts and shifts vs other team’s stars.
Ultimately , it looks like the Leafs will play Ceci to star, but how long can you really leave a player like Rasmus Sandin on your bench for?
The guy I guess I should mention is Kapanen. By expected goals, he is a great player – only problem is that despite getting a ton of minutes with two of the NHL’s best offensive centres, Kapanen could not buy a goal this year.
Next. Toronto Maple Leafs Regular Season Blue Line Player Grades. dark
Almost all NHL players will eventually match their expected goals with their actual goals, but Kapanen is only going to get so many opportunities with Tavares and Matthews, and he’s got to be better.