I know the Toronto Maple Leafs are up against the salary cap, but you can never have too much depth.
The NHL season is supposed to be a month away, but there are still a ton of unsigned Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA) the Toronto Maple Leafs could go after. Obviously, salary cap will effect what they can offer, but with the taxi-squad idea being a real possibility, the team may be able to make it work.
When you look at the Leafs roster, do they really need to acquire more talent? Their top-six forwards are arguably the best in the NHL, while their bottom-six is filled with veteran excellence. Even their defense was upgraded over the off-season and Freddie Andersen isn’t going anywhere, yet.
The simple answer would be, no.
However, that wouldn’t make for a fun read, would it?
The Toronto Maple Leafs can always improve and even though incoming salaries could be an issue, you need as much depth as possible for the 2020-21 season. The pandemic is still alive, so players are going to contract Covid-19 and then regular injuries are going to happen. Just look at the team last year. Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Andreas Johnsson and Ilya Mikheyev all missed significant time due to injury.
It’s something we hope doesn’t happen, but ends up happening every season. In 56-game sprint, one significant injury could be the difference between making or missing the playoffs. In an 82-game season, you have the luxury of star-player missing 10 games, but in this upcoming campaign, that would be almost 20 percent of the entire year missed.
Although you may think the team doesn’t need more depth, you can never have too much. Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza came to Toronto to win a Stanley Cup and if it means they rotate in and out of the line-up, I’m sure they’d be fine with that. They just want to be apart of the ride that gets them closer to lifting Lord Stanley.
So let’s take a look at five UFA’s that are still available for the Toronto Maple Leafs to pursue.