Toronto Maple Leafs Potential Opening Night Roster

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense

 Until Rasmus Sandin is signed, I would prefer that the blue-line looks like this:

Morgan Rielly – Timothy Liljegren  

Jake Muzzin – TJ Brodie

Mark Giordano – Justin Holl

If all goes well, this is still an above average backend. However, the high-ceiling potential of Rasmus Sandin is obviously missed.  Assuming the Leafs sign him and figure out a way to fit him into the lineup, this group will be even better.

Justin Holl – who offers good value as an effective right handed defenseman with size and skill – is the likely one to move, though there is still the issue of having too many left handers.

Timothy Liljegren was the Leafs most effective defenseman last season and even received some Calder Trophy votes.  If he can continue to improve his defensive game, he may capable of playing on the top pair, which, isn’t technically a top pairing – last season they used Ilya Lyubushkin with Rielly, so it’s not exactly a stretch to put Liljegren there to balance out the lineup with Brodie on the second pairing.

These pairings can change and obviously will once Rasmus Sandin is signed.  Jake Muzzin makes over five million per year, and is injury prone and in decline.  The Leafs could solve their cap issues and their positional issues by moving him out, but they may not be inclined to do so.

At this point, there is no way to know what they are thinking, just that they  clearly have to make some kind of move.  Until they do, the above lineup is, in my opinion, the best they can do.