The Toronto Maple Leafs and the rest of the NHL will kick off the new season on January 13th.
The agreement came with some very important details regarding the implementation of taxi squads which will allow teams to carry extra players that will not count against the cap. For the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have five NHL quality forward lines, three NHL goalies and four NHL quality defense pairings, this is very good news.
Here are the details as per Frank Seravalli at TSN.
The short of it is: each team can travel with a four to six man squad of players that they can treat like a traveling farm team. A third goalie must be included.
Toronto Maple Leafs Taxi Squad – Goalies and Defense
The first takeaway from the details is that the main roster for the Toronto Maple Leafs will likely end up including 21 players instead of 23 given how tight the team is against the cap.
Instead of having to worry about carrying only one extra on the road due to the cap, the Leafs will be able to have extra bodies in case of injury without them having to count against the cap. This is a massive advantage, and is an immediate pay-off for their off-season strategy of going over the cap with the hope of being able to manipulate it with paper transactions.
Frederik Andersen and Jack Campbell appear to be the consensus 1-2 duo going into this season. This makes it an easy guess that the third goaltender who will be included on the taxi squad will be Aaron Dell, as long as he isn’t claimed on waivers, which is a distinct possibility.
How the Leafs manage their defense will be one of the most interesting things about this season. Muzzin, Brodie and Rielly are locks to play every game if healthy, and based on his performance last year, Justin Holl should be too.
But Bogosian, Lehtonen, Dermott, Sandin, Liljegren and Marincin are all probably capable NHL players, and how the taxi squad looks depends on who makes the Leafs out of training camp, how many defenseman they plan on dressing every night (seven and double shifting a star on the fourth line could be the norm) and how much ice time they want Sandin and Liljegren to get.
Neither Bogosian or Dermott are exempt from waivers, so both should easily avoid the taxi squad, since neither one stands a chance of clearing waivers.
It’s possibly you could see most of the taxi squad made up of defenseman, with the Leafs dressing seven every night, while rotating in and out the waiver except players.
The Forwards
The Toronto Maple Leafs have so many forwards that could be capable of playing NHL minutes, seriously did you know they still have Dennis Malgin and Nic Petan in the organization?
Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares, Mikheyev, Hyman, and Kerfoot are absolute locks to be on the main roster. It would be a shock if any of Thornton, Simmonds, or Spezza were not included on the roster.
After that the Leafs have Vesey, Boyd, Andersen, Petan, Malgin, Barabanov, Engvall, and Nick Robertson fighting for ice time. All of these players would be above-average if they were played on the 4th line of an NHL team, so it’s clear the Leafs have a ton of depth. What isn’t clear, however, is how they will assemble and rotate these players.
How players perform in training camp will go a long way to deciding, but Robertson, Engvall, and Barabanov do not need to clear waivers, so they are prime candidates for the taxi squad.
The main takeaway from the taxi squad is that the Leafs have plenty of options to play with. Training camp will be really interesting to see who shines and surprises because I’m sure there will be a few surprises, Nic Petan could finally breakout and become a top-6 player, it’s possible.
The Leafs taxi squad should look something like this:
Dell, Engvall/Barbanov/Robertson, Engvall/Barbanov/Robertson, Boyd, Sandin, Marincin
The implementation of the taxi squad already appears to be really beneficial for the Leafs and should lead to them taking full advantage of the depth they’ve assembled this summer.