The Toronto Maple Leafs offseason was a resounding success.
The Toronto Maple Leafs started the off-season with a bang when they sent Kasperi Kapanen back to Pittsburgh in a trade that got them a first round pick, a top prospect, and saved them $3 million dollars in exchange for a winger they’d already made superfluous by signing Alex Barabanov.
By hitting a homerun in the draft the year before with Nick Robertson, the Leafs had also made Andreas Johnsson superfluous, and saved another $3 million by swapping him out for a prospect who is better than Johnsson was at the same age.
Combined with the savings from letting Kyle Clifford, Cody Ceci and Tyson Barrie walk, the Leafs were able to bring in T.J Brodie, a top pairing right-side defenseman that filled their biggest weakness.
Toronto Maple Leafs No Longer Have Any Weaknesses
With the rest of their money, they brought in Joe Thornton, Zach Bogosian, Jimmy Vesey and Wayne Simmonds to add depth, toughness, leadership and experience to their roster, seemingly banking on the rumour being true that the NHL will allow teams to have a taxi squad this season.
Add in the absolute steal of Rodion Amirov at 15th overall, and the signing of Mikko Lehtonen, and the Leafs off-season was incredible.
To sum up, the Leafs added: 2 x Top Prospects (Amirov, Hallander), the best non-NHL defenseman in the world, the top Russian UFA winger, the second best UFA defenseman, an NHL Legend, two respected vets, and a bunch of wild cards (Boyd, Anderson, Vesey).
While doing this, they addressed their three biggest needs, which were a top pairing right-side defenseman, blue-line depth, and prospect depth. Additionally, they added leadership, though with Rielly, Tavares and Muzzin it’s foolish to think they were lacking leadership before. Still, it can’t hurt to have guys like Thornton, Bogosian, Simmonds and Spezza around.
They also got slightly more physical, though I think this has been blown way out of proportion, as their four biggest moves (Brodie, Lehtonen, Barabanov and Thornton) don’t really add much physicality, and the players who do (Simmonds and Bogosian) are not likely to be regulars, nor play high in the lineup.
Still, considering how much fans and the media bemoaned their supposed cap problems, it’s impressive what the Leafs accomplished this off-season. They addressed every weakness they had, and are now arguably in possession of the NHL’s best and deepest roster.