Welcome to the first edition of the “31 Thoughts” Toronto Maple Leafs: 10 Thoughts!
Elliotte Friedman over at Sportsnet.ca runs a weekly podcast and subsequent article, detailing various rumblings he has heard around the league – his “31 Thoughts”. While his workings cover the entire NHL and all its teams, we are here because we are proud members of Leafsnation, so every “thought” in this article is going to relate to the Leafs.
With the offseason in full swing and several moves being made around the Leafs organization, Kyle Dubas has been busy. With still a couple more months until the season is supposedly going to start, is the Leafs GM done wheeling and dealing? Where does Joe Thornton play? Did the Leafs escape their perceived cap hell? Who gets the first crack alongside TJ Brodie?
With a lot of questions surrounding this team, let’s dive into this week’s “10 Thoughts”.
Thought #1: Kyle Dubas made the right decision.
While many of you will suggest it is easy to say this now that he has signed in Vegas, the fact remains Kyle Dubas made the right decision not pursuing Alex Pietrangelo as hard as he could have. In Dubas’ press conference following the TJ Brodie signing, he mentioned he had preliminary discussions with Pietrangelo’s agent, Don Meehan, but those did not get very far.
In hindsight, inking Brodie to a 4-year, $20 million deal and later Zach Bogosian to a 1-year, $1 million deal allowed the Leafs to create a deeper blueline that has not been this good in over a decade. Adding Pietrangelo to this roster would have further hindered their forward depth significantly, one that has already taken severe hits even without the addition of Pietrangelo.
As it stands right now, heading into 2020-21, the Toronto Maple Leafs blueline looks like this:
Morgan Rielly – TJ Brodie
Jake Muzzin – Justin Holl
Mikko Lehtonen – Travis Dermott
Rasmus Sandin – Zach Bogosian
Martin Marincin – Timothy Liljegren
In 2019-20, Martin Marincin was the Leafs 7th defensemen. With the blueline above, Marincin has now dropped all the way down to 9th on the depth chart. That is some nice tidy work by GM Dubas to significantly improve the depth of this team.
Thought #2: Expanded rosters.
With so much uncertainty regarding the status of the league next year, a lot of problems remain unanswered. The NHL, being the wealthiest professional hockey league in North America, will be able to survive this pandemic going into next year even if there are no fans in the building in the beginning.
But the same cannot be said for minor leagues such as the AHL or the OHL. Gary Bettman and Co. must decide what teams should do with their prospects so that their development is not hampered. One idea that is being floated around is allowing expanded rosters. Currently, each NHL franchise is allowed to carry a maximum of 23 players on their roster.
For the playoffs, each team was given extra roster spots or a “taxi squad” per se, which featured an additional eight skaters and as many goalies as the team would like. While there has been no concrete information indicating the league will be implementing expanded rosters, it is easy to assume there might be based on two factors:
First, Bettman has assured the league would like to play a full 82-game season next year. While that may not be plausible, in order to do so they would need to incorporate several more back-to-backs, three-in-fours, and maybe even four-in-sixes into the schedule. That type of taxing calendar can lead to a lot of injuries, hence the need for extra bodies.
Secondly, as previously mentioned, Dubas has significantly upgraded the depth of this team. We have seen the d-core vastly improved, and with the likes of Jimmy Vesey, Joey Anderson, Travis Boyd, and Alexander Barabanov joining the bottom six mix, the number of NHL-quality players on this roster is high.
Could this be an indication the team is hearing expanded rosters will be in place? No one knows but something to think about.