Toronto Maple Leafs: Nick Ritchie Is Reaching David Clarkson Territory

Is Nick Ritchie the biggest Toronto Maple Leafs bust since David Clarkson?

In July, 2013 the Toronto Maple Leafs signed power-forward David Clarkson to a seven-year contract, worth $36.5M total. The hometown kid played 118 total games in the blue-and-white and was promptly traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets halfway through the second year of that seven year contract.

The fact that the Leafs found a loophole in the system by absorbing Nathan Horton’s LTIR money straight-up for Clarkson is still unbelievable. It’s crazy that they didn’t even need to give up an asset to get rid of David Clarkson, while a few years later they lost a first-round pick to trade Patrick Marleau’s contract.

Anyways, Nick Ritchie is slowly creeping into David Clarkson mode right now.

His two-year $2.5M AAV contract may not be as big as Clarkson’s, but the two were a similar player with much bigger expectations in Toronto. When Clarkson signed with the Leafs, he was coming off a 15-goal season in a 48 game schedule.

Similarly enough, Ritchie finished with 15 goals in a 56 game schedule last year, so many fans (and myself) expected a similar outcome.

Is Nick Ritchie a Bust for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

In 16 games, Ritchie has zero goals and two assists. He was given an opportunity to play top-line minutes, but was quickly relegated to the fourth-line. Right when Ritchie got demoted, the top-four forwards of John Tavares, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Auston Matthews all started cooking. They’ve looked unbelievable in the past few weeks, all without Ritchie beside them.

When Clarkson joined the Leafs, his first 16 games looked very similar, except Clarkson actually scored. Clarkson had two goals and three assists for five points (stats: espn.com). Compared to Ritchie, Clarkson looked like a superstar in that first month of action.

Clarkson finished his first full season with five goals and six assists and at this pace, Ritchie is pacing towards a zero goal and 10 assist season.

Obviously, he’s bound to score soon, but his shots per net has dramatically gone down from last year. Ritchie was averaging 2.16 shots per game last year, but this year, he’s averaging 1.5 shots per game.

He’s on pace for the same amount of shots on net in an 82-game season that he got in a 56-game season last year.

During Leafs practice this week, Ritchie was put back on the top-line beside Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner so the return to the top could be his last chance to show his worth to the coaching staff and to management.

If Ritchie doesn’t score a goal beside those two soon, he may be shipped out at the deadline for someone better. Jimmy Vesey and Joe Thornton never worked with the top-line last year and half-way through the year, they were either put on waivers or sent to the fourth-line so the same thing could happen with Ritchie.

Let’s hope that if he gets more playing time, it’ll translate into goals, because if it doesn’t, the Nick Ritchie experiment may end in divorce very soon.