Top 3 Toronto Maple Leafs Roster Concerns for 2021-2022

  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?