The Toronto Maple Leafs biggest acquisition of the off-season was T.J Brodie.
In fact, if you look around the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs big off-season acquisition may have been the second biggest one any team in the NHL made over the entire off-season.
Everyone knows Alex Pietrangelo was the big fish of the NHL off-season, but I’d argue that because the Knights had to move Nathan Schmidt to make room for him, that they didn’t really improve all that much.
I think the Sabres adding Taylor Hall was the biggest impact move of the offseason, but after that, it’s probably Brodie to the Leafs that had the biggest impact.
A lot of people I’ve talked to don’t really seem to properly rate Brodie, so I thought I’d whip up this piece to show how big of an impact he’ll have.
Toronto Maple Leafs and T.J Brodie
The Leafs essentially swapped out Tyson Barrie for T.J Brodie. I am a huge Tyson Barrie fan, and I was psyched about the Leafs getting him, but T.J Brodie was their first choice last year (Kadri vetoed the deal) and the reason for that is that he’s a much better fit for the team.
Barrie is a great player, but like Kadri, it’s possibly (even likely) that what he brings to the team is something the team already has, and that there just isn’t enough ice time to go around to use him to the biggest advantage.
Brodie is a puck-moving defenseman who doesn’t score significantly less than Barrie at 5v5 game situations (if the NHL season wasn’t cut short, he likely gets his seventh straight 30 + point season, and most of that is 5v5) but like Kadri’s replacement, he brings something the Leafs were light on, namely 5v5 defense.
TJ Brodie, signed by TOR, is a top four left-handed two way defenceman who plays the right side and, yes, is good defensively. #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/THzJJy9SKb
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 9, 2020
If you compare the two charts (by @jfresh with stats from evolvinghockey.com) you can see that while Barrie is better than just 7% of NHL defenseman at 5v5 defense, Brodie is better than 88% of them.
That is a huge upgrade when you consider that the Leafs likely won’t even notice the loss of Barrie’s offense, due to being the best offensive team in the NHL.
Tyson Barrie, signed 1x$4M with EDM, is an offence-only right defenceman who's a liability defensively. #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/aGUGvOdkiQ
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 10, 2020
With Brodie, the Toronto Maple Leafs have upgraded their 5v5 defense, and you would now actually be hardpressed to find a better top four from a 5v5 defensive standpoint: Along with Brodie, Jake Muzzin is also in the upper-echelon of top even-strength defenders and so is Justin Holl.
Now, Holl doesn’t have the reputation (because he’s a 27 year old rookie) but he did just successfully play some of the toughest minutes in the NHL and come out with stellar numbers.
So while the Leafs top four now includes four defenseman who are underrated in one way or another, it’s actually quite impressive from at least a statistical perspective.
One last point to make: Brodie is going to make Morgan Rielly a better player. In short stretches, Rielly has had success with Jake Gardiner and Tyson Barrie as his partner, but he has never had a long-term, regular partner who qualifies as anything other than a fringe NHL player.
Brodie should have a huge impact, and other than Taylor Hall could end up being the NHL’s biggest upgrade this offseason. Regardless, make no mistake: this is a HUGE upgrade for the Leafs.