Toronto Maple Leafs: 4 Questions for Sheldon Keefe In Training Camp
The Toronto Maple Leafs enter the 2021/22 season with a team made up largely of unknown quantities. Yes, of course there are the obvious returnees, but even with players like Jack Campbell still under contract, whether he can factor in as a true No.1 remains to be seen.
At least for the Leafs brass, the rookie camp showed almost exactly what they expected: Nick Robertson is the best rookie by a country mile, Seymon Der-Arguchintsev continued to perplex with some vastly below par and other standout performances, Ian Scott remained cool while a few players like Joseph Duszak impressed.
Now here come the big boys. With Auston Matthews stating he will be ramping up his workouts it’s understandable that much of the media attention is on the empty spot vacated by Zach Hyman moving to Edmonton.
Yet that isn’t the only big question heading into training camp for the Toronto Maple Leafs. With how last season ended, and how this season is expected to go there is a lot of pressure on the players.
Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, regardless of how Toronto performs in the upcoming campaign, has a massive offseason ahead of him. With Morgan Reilly, Jack Campbell and Rasmus Sandin all due for new deals it remains unclear how Dubas will work them into a team constantly under salary cap constraints.
Yet the pressure is probably highest on Head Coach Sheldon Keefe. After the exit to the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs some people were calling for Keefe to be fired. Whichever side of that argument you come down on, coming into this season it is hard to argue the glare is more concentrated than on the 41-year-old Brampton native.
Here are four big questions facing Sheldon Keefe entering training camp, and the Toronto Maple Leafs upcoming season.
Who Plays with the Toronto Maple Leafs Best Player?
The teaser for this slide could have been “Who Plays with No.34 & No. 16” since Matthews and Mitch Marner were virtually inseparable last season. However the reason for leaving Marner out of the initial question is important.
Mitch Marner is an elite NHL player, there is no way around that point. Auston Matthews is a generational NHL player and one of the purest goal scorers the game has seen.
The two combined exceptionally well in the regular season but failed to spark in the playoffs and part of that came down to how much Keefe played the two together. When it wasn’t working, with Tavaers injured, there was little in the Plan B column for Keefe to use.
Matthews and Marner are so good they can play on any line and make it better, but when Keefe needed another option against the Habs, his reluctance to play them apart during the regular season cost him.
Keefe needs to use training camp to find viable alternatives to a Matthews-Marner tandum. Whether that means reuniting Marner and John Tavares, who played very very well together, or Matthews and Nylander, who showed flashes of excellence as well, there needs to be some movement.
Keefe may be loathe to change up the Nylander-Tavares combination since that came alive towards the end of the season but he needs to find something else. This is all before there is any discussion about whether it should be Michael Bunting, Nick Ritchie or perhaps a wild card like Ilya Mikheyev, Nick Robertson or Josh Ho-Sang on Matthews left side (for the record, it should start with Ritchie).
Toronto’s Power-Play
Perhaps the biggest flaw that the Montreal Canadiens exposed during the 1st round of the playoffs last season was the lack of killer instinct the Toronto Maple Leafs powerplay had.
The Leafs just couldn’t score, and absolutely part of that was down to some unbelievable goaltending from Carey Price. However there was a lot of it to do with a lack of mobility, quick puck movements and searching for the perfect shot.
For what felt like 85% of the time they were on the powerplay, Toronto looked as if they wanted to pass the puck into the net instead of shoot it past Price.
Certainly part of that could be down losing John Tavares to injury and some wrist pain that Auston Matthews felt, but Mitch Marner looked reluctant to fire the puck goal-wards and Rielly looked devoid of ideas.
Without their two core powerplay quarterbacks, the Toronto Maple Leafs were lifeless.
Sheldon Keefe, and his assistants need to address this in training camp. That could mean giving the above pictured Rasmus Sandin more powerplay opportunities. It could also be a deciding factor in someone like Nick Robertson making the team out of camp. The 20-year-old has a booming shot, and is more than happy to let it loose. His ability, and willingness to shoot could be a massive factor when it comes to cuts.
Perhaps even more simply, it could be making the decision to overload one PP unit, or try and spread the love; whichever route Keefe decides to go, he needs to find answers before the start of the season.
Toronto Maple Leafs Goalies
Petr Mrazek signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs has finally brought a question to training camp that the Leafs haven’t had to face in a long time: Who is going to start in goal?
When Frederik Andersen was with the team, it was obvious, he was the undisputed No.1 and his record proved that. Andersen had some shaky moments but he was always the best option for the Leafs if they wanted to be competitive between the pipes.
Injuries however, took their toll. Andersen started to lose some of the shine and when Jack Campbell went on a long winning run, Keefe made the decision to stick with a new No.1.
The question mark at camp is whether Campbell can take the reins as a fully fledged No.1 for Toronto. Campbell has never played more than 31 games in a season, so whether he can withstand the rigours remains to be seen.
In Mrazek, the Leafs have a goalie who is the same age but has played 189 more games than Campbell and four seasons with more than 40 games and two where he notched 50 and 54 games played.
Does Keefe really need to decide, barring injury, which one will be the undisputed starter? Probably not. In fact, this might be the easiest possible question for Keefe to answer that he doesn’t need to name a No.1 and can instead go with a 1A-1B approach.
Even so, the longer Keefe waits to make the situation clear, the more the anxiety can grow and if there is one thing this team cannot afford, it is an unsettled presence in net.
Keeping Everyone Happy
If Sheldon Keefe gets this one wrong, it could spell disaster for the Toronto Maple Leafs this season, and already, there is some trouble brewing.
First of all, the Toronto Maple Leafs need to win this year, and they need to win a lot. That means playing Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander, Rielly, Muzzin and Brodie a lot. They are comfortably Toronto’s best players, if Keefe wants to win, he’ll need to ride them.
Toronto’s talent is concentrated on a few players (much to the chagrin of a lot of fans) but it takes far more than that to run a successful hockey club.
Players like Jason Spezza, Wayne Simmonds and to an extent Alexander Kerfoot know they are role players already. Newcomers Nick Ritchie and Michael Bunting will likely benefit the most alongside the top two lines, but keeping the likes of David Kampf and Ondrej Kase happy will be more of a task.
The most difficult to keep happy is surely Ilya Mikheyev who handed in a transfer request in the summer that was promptly denied.
Ironically, for all the holes that the team had going in to the season, there aren’t many roles available. It seems counter intuitive but it’s true. The penalty kill will get Kampf as a new face, but otherwise you can expect Keefe will keep Kerfoot, Marner and Mikheyev in those roles.
The space on the Matthews wing seems to already have been filled by Ritchie, while Campbell will not want to take a backup role now he has tasted what it’s like to be starter, and Mrazek certainly wont.
Next. Positional Battles to Watch In Training Camp. dark
There is always a level of juggling that needs to be done on hockey teams, but with so many known and just as many unknown quantities on this Toronto Maple Leafs team, Sheldon Keefe will have to make sure the chemistry in the locker room doesn’t get in the way of the victories, and vice-versa.