Top 3 Toronto Maple Leafs Roster Concerns for 2021-2022

Well it’s August in Toronto and the hot, humid days are engulfing the city like Philip Danault on Auston Matthews in a series-deciding game. Surely many members of the Toronto Maple Leafs are still shoring up their golf games (insert “Leaf-losers-golfing” joke here) but training camp is just around the corner and before we know it the Air Canada Centre will be rocking with an undisclosed amount of fans with varying levels of vaccination history.

Indeed these are exciting times that we live in. So with now less than two months until the Toronto Maple Leafs open up the 2021-2022 NHL season at home against the Montreal Canadiens, the Leafs appear to have some significant question marks on a roster that has only managed to disappoint and underwhelm the past four years.

The current roster (hampered  by the loss of Zach Hyman) was limited to a few modest free agent forward signings this offseason while the defense remained untouched.

The Leafs did improve at the goaltending position by bringing in Petr Mrazek but it probably wasn’t the lack of a viable second goaltender that resulted in Matthews and Marner combining for one goal in seven playoff games against Montreal.

Nevertheless, we are at the stage in the offseason that, barring any significant trade, the Toronto Maple Leafs current roster should be the one we see opening day. It certainly isn’t doom and gloom but here are three particular areas that are concerning going into 2021-2022:

Toronto Maple Leafs Area of Concern: Top-Six Left Wing

Zach Hyman left Toronto to ply his trade with a similarly underperforming franchise, the Edmonton Oilers.

Signed for 7 years at $5.5 million per, Toronto couldn’t (and shouldn’t have, even if they could) match the offer for the 29 year-old winger and ultimately weren’t able to find a suitable replacement.  Instead they opted to ink a couple of younger wingers with a bit of potential in Michael Bunting and Nick Ritchie.  This might sound like a terrible move on the surface, but in reality , with four superstars in their top six, the Leafs should be able to manufacture two solid, complimentary wingers out of whatever they can find.

Bunting, a Coyotes 2014 fourth-round pick, is a fine signing. 950K per year over 2 years offers good value for a 25 year-old (26 in September) who managed 10 goals in 21 games for Arizona last year (all stats from hockey-reference.com).

He put up strong numbers for the Greyhounds in the OHL as an 18 and 19-year old and has consistently produced in the AHL. That being said, Bunting benefited from an extremely high shooting percentage last year (26.3%) and is quite raw and unproven. He is a perfect bottom-six candidate who should have to compete for a regular spot in the lineup; not a bona fide top-six forward at this stage in his career.

Drafted 10th overall (and just two spots after William Nylander), Ritchie is a big; bruising left-winger with 350 NHL games under his belt and a decent, if not spectacular, track record. He has scored in the double-digits three times in his career and his strength and tenacity could be a good complimentary piece to the skill and finesse that already exists on the first-two lines. With an average career ice-time of 13:48; however, Ritchie has never seen top-six minutes and his average top-speed might be limiting. He’s a top-six candidate but not an ideal one and still a notable drop from Hyman.

The other left wingers in the line-up are Alex Kerfoot and Ilya Mikheyev. Along with Engvall, Bunting, Kase, Simmonds, Robertson, Anderson and Brooks all vying for up-for-grabs spots in the bottom part of the lineup, may have to compete simply for a spot on the 4th-line. Kerfoot is the most likely candidate to line up on the left side of the Matthews or the Tavares line; a role that seems too demanding for a finesse player that hasn’t hit the ten-goal or 30-point mark in either of his two seasons with the Leafs.

A dynamic camp from one of Rodion Amirov or Nicholas Robertson would provide an interesting left wing option for the top-six but Amirov is probably too young to make the leap to the NHL and Robertson still doesn’t turn 20 until September and only played in 27 total games in 2020-2021.

There is some nice depth on the wing here but most of it appears to be of the 3rd and 4th line variety. The Leafs are going to need some breakout years from Bunting and/or Ritchie.

  Alexander Kerfoot

There was reason for optimism when Toronto acquired Kerfoot from the Avalanche in the Kadri deal. As a 23-year old, Kerfoot managed 19 goals and 43 points in just under 13:30 minutes of playing time. The following year he hit 15 goals and 42 points.. He also put up a CF% of 55.5 in his time in Colorado (all stats from hockey-reference.com). Kerfoot was four years younger than Kadri and agreed to a multi-year deal that paid him $1M less per year. He appeared to be a prime candidate for the vacant 3rd-line centre position.

Kerfoot has been a decent player, offering solid defense and scoring at a 5v5 rate that is not far from what Kadri was doing.  In his first year in Toronto, Kerfoot scored at a rate of 1.8 points per 60 minutes of 5v5 ice time.  In his last year in Toronto, Kadri scored at a rate of 1.84 points per minute. This year Kerfoot scored at a rate of 1.63 O/60 while Kadri put up a 1.77. When you consider that the Kerfoot doesn’t play the PP, but provides significantly better defense, it’s not as bad of a trade off as people tend to think.

Obviously the Leafs still see something there, particularly since they essentially shipped out a decent centre prospect (a position of extreme weakness in the system) in Filip Hallander to ensure Kerfoot wasn’t taken by the Kraken in the expansion draft.

But with the reluctance to use Kerfoot at centre and the signing of Kampf to challenge for that 3C spot, I’d argue that keeping Hallander, letting Seattle select Kerfoot and using the $3.5 million in savings for an actual upgrade at the LW position would have made the most sense. Would you rather have one of Brandon Saad, Mike Hoffman or Tomas Tatar (all signed for $4.5M per this offseason) plus Hallander or simply two more years of Kerfoot alone at $3.5M?

Now all of this being said, the Toronto Maple Leafs do possess a strong top-four defense with some youth and potential in the bottom spots, solid goaltending with two potential starters and some truly elite forwards in their prime of their careers.

So maybe all they need is a few complementary players to plug some holes here and there and some quality depth competing for playing time in the bottom-six of the roster. And maybe Kerfoot, with a full-time position on the left of Tavares and Nylander, will fully blossom; their CF% and SF% as a line last year in 94+ minutes of ice-time were a sparkling 57.4 and 58.4, respectively.

And while the offseason may have been somewhat disappointing, if not anti-climactic, for most, it usually doesn’t take too long before a lot of those long-term free agent commitments turn into utter and complete regret.

But let’s face it; Toronto had a first-round matchup (and a 3-1 series lead) against a much worse Canadiens team that should have been a “slam-dunk” victory, resulting in more humiliation and a chorus of “chokers!” from onlookers everywhere.

So Toronto could have signed Ovechkin, Landeskog, Grubauer, and Hamilton this offseason and even some of the most ardent Leafs fans would still shrug their shoulders and offer a ‘wait and see’ approach. And they wouldn’t be wrong. The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to have to prove themselves in the playoffs before anyone truly starts believing the hype again.