Toronto Maple Leafs: Predicting Next Season’s Defensive Pairings
By James Reeve
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.