Toronto Maple Leafs: Predicting Next Season’s Defensive Pairings
By James Reeve
The Toronto Maple Leafs have made some significant changes to their defensive group this off-season, but how will they line-up next season?
For a number of seasons, the biggest area that needed some improvements for the Toronto Maple Leafs was along the blueline, with an interesting range of players being given the chance to solve the team’s defensive woes.
Morgan Rielly is the only player that has remained throughout the entirety of Kyle Dubas and even Lou Lamoriello’s spells as general manager of the team, and the top six could look very different when the 2020/21 season eventually begins once again.
With Rielly still the best defenseman on the Leafs roster, who else could line up alongside him and how might the rest of the team’s pairings look when the next season rolls around?
Top Pairing
This pairing is by far the easiest to predict for the Toronto Maple Leafs, with Morgan Rielly cemented as the team’s top left-sided blueliner, with recent free agent signing T.J. Brodie without a doubt going to be his partner on the right side.
Rielly has been one of the very few bright sparks for the Leafs defense over the past few years, with a flurry of partners that have not been good enough to get the team beyond the first round of the playoffs.
Ron Hainsey, Roman Polak, and Cody Ceci have all been paired with Rielly, and other than brief stints with Jake Gardiner and Tyson Barrie, he’s never had anyone close to his level as a partner in the NHL.
Now, Rielly will finally have a partner that can step up at both ends of the ice and give the Leafs a legitimate top pairing in the NHL – with left-handed shot Brodie signing a four-year, $5 million a season contract after playing his entire career with the Calgary Flames.
The partnership should work well for Toronto, with Rielly being an excellent all-around defenseman that has elite offensive upside, while Brodie, who has generally been good for 30+ points a season, is better suited to the defensive side of the game.
The pair will be relied on heavily heading into next season and the two veterans will need to set the tone for the rest of the Leafs’ blueline, with a number of spots still not completely locked up, despite some new arrivals.