What Do the Toronto Maple Leafs Get in T.J Brodie?

The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed T.J Brodie in Free Agency.

The Toronto Maple Leafs made a huge splash as NHL free agency opened up on Friday.  Instead of landing Alex Pietrangelo, the Leafs signed the second best available defenseman on the market.

Sure, it’s not the future Hall of Famer people were hoping for, but its a more realistic, less risky signing, and Brodie is a damn good player who makes the Leafs a significantly better team.  Considering the Leafs just had Codi Ceci playing with their best defenseman, this is a massive upgrade.

The Leafs signed Brodie to a reasonable 5 million dollar cap hit for four years.

T.J Brodie and the Toronto Maple Leafs

Make no mistake, despite not landing the big fish, the Leafs are huge winners this year in free agency.  T.J Brodie is a high-end, top pairing defenseman who fits into the Leafs philosophy of having smart players who can move the puck.

Brodie isn’t blazingly fast, and he isn’t a thunderous body checker.  He is a just a very effective, if unexciting, quality player.  He isn’t going to light it up offensively, and his defense will get complained about because he doesn’t lay huge hits, but he is just a really solid, always effective, quality player.

As you can see from the chart, Brodie is an OK offensive player at 5v5 (he won’t likely play much PP in Toronto) who provides excellent defense. Over three years, Brodie’s 5v5 defense has been better than 84% of NHL defensemen, and is the best mark on the Leafs.  He was worth 1.7 WAR last year,  which was better than 87% of NHL defenseman.  He is a  top pairing player who moves the needle and makes a difference. He may not be Pietrangelo, but he is more or less as good as Jake Muzzin.  (stats Jfresh and Evolving-hockey.com). 

Sure, he’s 30, but since his game isn’t based on speed or physicality, he should age gracefully.  The cap hit is more than decent for what he provides.

The only drawback on Brodie is that he isn’t a very good penalty killer.  Special teams decisions shouldn’t drive decisions anyways, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

What the Leafs have here is a solid player who projects as far and away the best partner Morgan Rielly has ever had.  This will give the Leafs a true top pairing.   Judging by Kyle Dubas’ comments, it doesn’t sound like the Leafs are ready to move on from Travis Dermott either.

That means that Justin Holl will likely find himself the odd man out when the Leafs resume play.  Jake Muzzin, Morgan Rielly and T.J Brodie gives the Leafs a top-three to go up against anyone in the league, while Dermott, Rasmus Sandin and Mikko Lehtenon will round out the top six.

The Leafs could still sign another defensemen, but it would likely be a seventh man.  This move may make Timothy Liljegren available in a trade, and there will also be salary cap ramifications. The Leafs still have to move somebody, and who knows what the roster will look like when things resume.

For now we know one thing: The Toronto Maple Leafs are significantly better than they were yesterday.  If they didn’t already have the best roster in the NHL, they’re very close to it now.