Answering the Toronto Maple Leafs Top 5 Most Burning Lineup Questions

After another early playoff exit, the Toronto Maple Leafs year-end press conference featured the same theme as it has in years past:

How are the Toronto Maple Leafs going to fix their roster? Assuming it needs fixing.  People will point to Toronto shooting 2% during the Blue Jackets series, an outrageous anomaly, as a reason for Dubas to blow up his roster. However, Kyle is an smart guy and is not going to make decisions based on a five-game sample size after an extremely lengthy layoff.

He is going to make decisions based on the 70 games prior to that, which featured a team that was  inconsistent, but did have a lot of injuries, a coaching change, and bad goaltending. A team, who for long stretches of the season, relied only on the top-six forward group, mostly the ‘Big Four’, for all the team’s offence. A team who recognized mid-season the need for added toughness in the bottom six, while simultaneously not sacrificing skill.

Kyle Dubas recognizes he needs a little retool to his roster and has insisted he will change certain aspects of his teams’ genetic makeup. Well, Dubas kicked off his offseason process with an absolute home run of a trade, sending out Kasperi Kapanen in exchange for a first-round pick and prospect Filip Hållander.

It remains to be seen what other pieces the second-year GM will be shipping out and which new faces he will be bringing in, and while the Kapanen trade was a fantastic way to get the ball rolling, there are still major holes on this Toronto Maple Leafs roster that needs patching up before the start of next season.

With that in mind, let’s look at the five biggest holes on the Leafs  roster and predict how Dubas is going to fill it.