Toronto Maple Leafs: Predicting Next Season’s Defensive Pairings
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.
Second Pairing
It’s difficult to tell what head coach Sheldon Keefe’s philosophy is regarding his defensive pairings, but balance seems to be the most logical approach for him moving forward.
The Leafs have one of the best two-way defensemen in the NHL in Jake Muzzin, whose injury last season saw the team effectively capitulate and struggle with such little depth with him out of the line-up.
Muzzin is a clear lock for the Leafs’ second pairing, sitting firmly on the left side of the defense and providing hits and elite defensive responsibility once again.
His partner on the right side is far less secure and the options here could overlap with the team’s bottom pairing, with both Mikko Lehtonen and Justin Holl logical options for the team.
Lehtonen, a lefty, has played on the right side plenty and was named Defenseman of the Year in the KHL last season, continuing his exceptional form with six goals and 13 total points in nine regular-season games so far with Finnish club Jokerit in the 2020/21 KHL campaign. (Stats via Elite Prospects).
Lehtonen’s offensive senses and puck moving skills could be a nice compliment to Muzzin’s physical style, giving the second pairing some interesting flexibility and options across a full regular season.
The difficult thing with this would be splitting up Muzzin from Holl, which looked to be growing into an exceptional partnership before the end of the season – meaning that the 28-year-old can’t be completely ruled out at this spot.
The natural right-handed shot could solidify his position on the team if he can continue to build chemistry with Muzzin and give the Leafs a strong, shut-down style pairing.
Lehtonen’s performances overseas will undoubtedly see him in the Leafs line-up come opening day, whenever that is, but whether it’s on the second pairing or not will really depend on the team feels about Justin Holl.
Bottom Pairing
The Toronto Maple Leafs have added three new faces to the defensive corps, with Brodie and Lehtonen expected to play important roles along the line-up.
The third addition is veteran Zach Bogosian, who heads north of the border after lifting the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning just a couple of weeks ago.
Bogosian played alongside Victor Hedman in the playoffs, helping to pull him along at times, while he struggled to remain on a struggling Buffalo Sabres roster during the regular season before the Coronavirus shut down things down.
His physical style, combined with his 6-foot-3, 221lbs frame, lends him to protecting his teammates and being a general menace while he’s on the ice – potentially being the perfect partner for a player that plays a more puck-moving style.
Rasmus Sandin has seen the first year of his entry-level contract burned so it would be surprising to see him not start the season as the Leafs’ bottom pairing left-sided defenseman when play eventually resumed.
Sandin made great strides in a largely sheltered role with the Leafs last season and partnering him with Bogosian could see him grow with the added protection factor, with the 30-year-old former Sabre likely to cause opposing players to have nightmares if they lay a finger on the young Swede.
The biggest question for the Leafs, though, is Travis Dermott and Mikko Lehtonen – with the team needing to make some interesting decisions with regards to the team’s make-up next season.
Dermott still has not signed a new deal with the team and could potentially be dealt, with Lehtonen showing enough in the KHL to suggest that he is more than ready to take a role on an NHL roster with both hands.
A partnership of Lehtonen and Bogosian could work, with their balanced styles, while Sandin would also work nicely alongside the veteran, with the 20-year-old likely to take the next leap forward in his next professional season.
If Lehtonen can bump Holl out of the second pairing, it’s likely that Sandin retains his spot on the bottom pairing, meaning that Holl would battle it out with Bogosian over the right side, but it’s likely that the Leafs give the veteran the chance to play meaningful minutes.
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The bottom pairing is arguably the hardest of the pairings to predict because the Leafs have Sandin, Lehetonen, Dermott and Bogosian all competing for a spot in the lineup. Any combination of these players could work, but keep in mind that that the upcoming season will most likely start in January and feature a condensed schedule. Conversely, the Leafs will most not use a set lineup, and that they will put their massive depth (ten NHL players when you factor Marincin, Rosen and Liljegren) to great advantage.