Toronto Maple Leafs: Rating Kyle Dubas Off-Season Performance

James Tanner

The Toronto Maple Leafs were already one of the NHL’s best teams.  I don’t care what critics say, the facts back this up.  The Leafs team stats under Keefe were as good as Tampa and Las Vegas.  The Leafs main problems were Babcock, injuries, and goaltending.

None of these had anything to do with the off-season we are here to talk about, but it is important to note that while most people were overreacting (to what were nothing more than unfortunate results, that easily could have gone the other way) the Leafs knew they were playing from a position of strength.

In my opinion the Leafs could have come back with the exact same roster and been one of the top two or three Cup Contenders.  But they didn’t, they significantly improved by adding T.J Brodie, who is one of the best defenseman in the NHL.  (Top 30 or 40 at least, and there’s 62 top pairing defensemen).

That is obviously, and without question their best off-season move, but what allowed that to happen was strong drafting and scouting that let them have replacements for Johnson and Kapanen already to go, thus giving them the flexibility they needed to avoid doing anything silly.

Brodie alone makes this off-season a huge success, but the fact that they also added Mikko Lehtonen is a huge bonus.  Everything else is just a depth move that won’t really make a big impact.  Of course if they do happen to win, Joe Thornton will probably get too much credit, and people will say Wayne Simmonds really made them harder to play against, but that will all be the typical nonsense narrative that comes with every sports team.

You could have signed any other random players after signing Brodie and Lehtonen, and this offseason would still have been exactly as successful as it is right now.  Thornton and Simmonds are obviously fun additions, but difference between the best and worst third and fourth liners isn’t generally very big and, in fact, barely exists. Great job by the Leafs, by far the best off-season of any other team, save the Rangers (but that was just lottery luck).