The Toronto Maple Leafs have two more moves to make this summer before training camp.
The Toronto Maple Leafs believe they can win with the core they have in place, but that doesn’t mean they should bring back the exact same team as last year.
Hyman has left, and that is the only significant change in the lineup thus far. (Thornton, Bogosian and Andersen don’t exactly make a huge difference).
The Leafs have brought in a handful of players who may replace Hyman and the bit-part players who left, but their roster is still more or less the same as it was. The problem here isn’t change for the sake of change, but rather the limits it imposes on the new players the Leafs acquired.
If there are no more changes, there is really only one roster spot up for grabs.
Toronto Maple Leafs Have Two Trades to Make
You can pretty much guarantee that David Kampf and Nick Ritchie have roster spots, so that means that right now, the Leafs lineup look something like this:
Ritchie – Matthews – Marner
Kerfoot – Tavares – Nylander
Mikheyev – Kampf –
Spezza – Engvall – Simmonds
That means that Micheal Bunting, Ondrej Kase, Kurtis Gabriel, Adam Brooks, Josh Ho-Sang, Joey Anderson and Denis Malgin are all competing for one job. (It also means that the Leafs are a really deep team, but don’t tell the people hell bent on complaining about a salary cap problem that doesn’t exist).
That’s before the Leafs even give a single prospect a chance to make the team. Nick Robertson, Semyong Der-Arguchintsov, Mikhail Abramov, and Rodian Amirov could all potentially push for playing time in training camp. Ideally, if a player shows he can be in the NHL and has an Entry-Level Contract, that is something you want to have the ability to use.
And, given the very slight difference between any and all non-star players who are capable of making the NHL, there is no point in clogging up the works with Kerfoot and Mikheyev. It just doesn’t make any sense to completely block all your rookies from having a chance to make the team.
Letting both players go will not only give the Leafs the sense of having changed up the team significantly, but it will open up room for players to actually make the team. Instead of having 11 guys fighting for one spot, you’ve got 11 guys fighting for three.
In addition, Kerfoot and Mikheyev combine to make $5 million dollars, which, if they don’t use it and work to accumulate more space through the season by being crafty with the roster, they’d have room to add a superstar at the tread deadline.
The logic behind moving Mikheyev and Kerfoot is rock solid, and I can’t even think of an argument for keeping them. Perhaps: “Let’s clog the roster, prevent the ability to make use of ELCs and have zero cap space so we can keep two middle-of-the road 27 year-olds with no ceiling.”
The Toronto Maple Leafs desperately need to develop a star player who wasn’t drafted in the top of the first round, and they will never do that if they don’t have a realistic path for their prospects to play NHL games. Trading Mikheyev and Kerfoot solves three problems: 1) Roster Clog 2) Salary Cap 3) Creates the Illusion of change.
Don’t expect either player to play another game for the Leafs.