Toronto Maple Leafs: 3 Potential Replacements for Zach Hyman

No. 2 : Brock McGinn

When you think of first-line left wingers you probably don’t think of Brock McGinn.

The 27-year-old from Fergus, ON is a pending UFA and has been a steady second or third-liner his entire career. However, instead of putting him in a shutdown role, he could be a cheap player beside Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.

The reason Zach Hyman was so good was because he was unselfish. He was a hard-worker who could retrieve pucks in the corner and battle hard to score the “greasy goals.” He clearly has more talent than just being a worker-bee, but that’s the number-one reason why he’s been so successful.

Instead of spending a lot of money on a high-skilled winger, McGinn could be a very inexpensive player who can fit the role that Hyman did for $3M less per season.

Matthews and Marner should be able to carry a line by themselves, but McGinn has scored 16 goals in a season before and paired beside those two, there’s no reason to believe he can’t score 20-plus goals in a season.

If the Leafs want to be a better team next year, they should balance the remaining salary they have towards their third line and find inexpensive pieces like McGinn to play beside the core four.

Or they could spend some money on a proven goal-scorer like this next player…