3 Players that Must Step Up for the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are entering the season with a re-worked bottom six and an entirely new goaltending tandem. The team will have to step it up as a whole, but three players stand out.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are entering the season most likely as they are. They have some cap flexibility built in with contracts to players they should have no problem moving, if they want to, but there is is no reason to rush.

The Leafs are built to rely on their stars, and that likely won’t change.  Ondrej Kase, Ilya Mikheyev and Jason Spezza are out, but their offense shouldn’t be too hard to match by whoever ends up winning the available ice time.

The defense is more or less the same, and goaltending will be completely different, which comes in as a massive question mark, but so do all goalies, every year.

Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner will do the same as last season, while  Tavares and Nylander  will offer among the best complimentary scoring in the league.  With that said, there are three specific players who must step it up in order for the Toronto Maple Leafs to succeed.

Toronto Maple Leafs Who Need to Step Up: Alex Kerfoot

Though a popular target for trade rumours,  Alex Kerfoot shouldn’t be traded, and if he can step up his game after a career season last year, the Leafs will be much improved.

Kerfoot is a solid defender, and he was the most used player with Nylander and Tavares last season.  Kerfoot scored 13 times and finished with 51 points, which is a lot considering he doesn’t play on the power-play.  (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Kerfoot was actually third on the Leafs in 5v5 scoring, ahead of both his linemates.

Playing on a line with John Tavares and William Nylander isn’t an easy task for anyone and a player with the same skillset as Kerfoot, who isn’t as naturally skilled offensively, may find himself left behind more often than not. However, with the skilled line mates that he will have, the only obvious thing for Kerfoot would be this: Don’t mess up. For example, let’s say that Tavares and Nylander did all the work to set Kerfoot up for a tap-in goal. All he has to do is not miss the net.

Kerfoot is obvsiouly way above average for being a team’s 4th best winger, but he is going to have to step it up this year if he wants to keep his job, because Nick Robertson is coming off a point-per-game AHL performance where he scored 16 goals in 28 games.

Robertson has the second-best shot on the Leafs after Matthews, and is going to get every chance to make the team.  This means that Alex Kerfoot must improve on his career season if he wants to stay in Toronto.

Expectations: 60 pts this season

Matt Murray

The Toronto Maple Leafs are betting on Matt Murray to have a bounce back season and help anchor the Maple Leafs to postseason success. However, there are a few red flags here which makes this a bit of a longshot.

First, Murray is injury prone.  You have to go back four years to find a season where he last played 50 games.  The Leafs clearly did their homework however, so he should be healthy to start the season, and the injury thing shouldn’t be too big of a deal, since if he can’t play the team can put him on the LTIR and get a replacement.

The only real risk here is that he finds his form, makes the Leafs look like geniuses, then gets injured late in the year when it’s hard to replace him.  This risk is lessened by the fact that that could happen with any goalie at any time.

Consistency is also a problem with Murray. When he has been healthy, he just hasn’t been that good.  There was a nice stretch last year before he went down, and you assume that is what the Leafs are banking on, but there are no sure things with players who suffer injuries in four straight years.

While his postseason stats are impressive with a 2.18 GAA and a 0.921 save percentage, not to mention 2 x Stanley Cups,  you can see a massive drop off from his back-to-back Stanley Cup seasons to his other work. In his recent trip to the playoffs with the Pittsburgh Penguins, he was horribly inconsistent and the Pens would rely on Tristan Jarry.

Thankfully, Murray is an at least average goaltender who teams would rely on. He has solid poise and his ability to stay calm under pressure is well-known during this breakthrough in the league. If Murray can find this form again, then I am certain that the Maple Leafs will finally find postseason success.

Expectations: 0.920 save percentage with a 2.5 goals against average, bringing the same success to the postseason.