Toronto Maple Leafs: Fantasy Hockey Tips and Advice for 2021-22
By Andrew Kogut
![SECAUCUS, NEW JERSEY - OCTOBER 06: A general view of the draft board following the first round of the 2020 National Hockey League (NHL) Draft at the NHL Network Studio on October 06, 2020 in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) SECAUCUS, NEW JERSEY - OCTOBER 06: A general view of the draft board following the first round of the 2020 National Hockey League (NHL) Draft at the NHL Network Studio on October 06, 2020 in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/05c0b25333a6802f7b81fdd52de8f4b35b3296efb2af516437f09c7b6c39e90d.jpg)
RASMUS SANDIN (D)
Sandin should be a lock to make the top-six this year after the departure of Zach Bogosian and with nothing but depth-signings on the back end this offseason. While he most likely plays with Travis Dermott on the 3rd-pairing, there is a chance that Sandin sees significant time on the power-play, an area that badly plagued the Leafs during the last few months last season.
Morgan Rielly is penciled in as the PP QB for now but he struggled in that position last year and Sandin could be primed to take over (he manned that spot at times during the playoffs against Montreal, too). There could be some fantasy value for points, PPP, +/- , as well as a decent amount of blocks and hits. A good late-round pick, if there aren’t too many Leaf fan-boys in your draft.
NICK RITCHIE (LW)
With Zack Hyman leaving and no real threat on LW, Ritchie will be given every opportunity to fill in for Hyman on one of the top-two lines.
That means there is a strong chance that Ritchie, with elite line-mates and ample ice-time, will rack up a fair amount of goals and points. He scored a career-high 15 goals in 56 games last year in 15:22 minutes of ice-time for Boston (all stats from hockey-reference.com) and his role in Toronto might be bigger, particularly if he is used like Hyman was. There may be a chance for plenty of power-play minutes as a bruising, net-crashing presence as well. 20 goals, 50 points, 150 hits with positive +/- and double-digits PPP is attainable.