Toronto Maple Leafs Opening Night Roster Disappointing, Understandable

The Toronto Maple Leafs will kick off their 2022-23 NHL season tomorrow night against Montreal.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are now cap compliant after being nearly $3 million over the cap for most of the summer.

However, in becoming compliant, the Leafs have had to send down Nick Robertson, who made the team on merit in training camp. 

They also have had to juggle their lines, and their inability/reluctance and/or patience w/r/t Kerfoot/Holl/Muzzin trades is causing some problems, which I will get into below.

But before I do that, I should say these are very minor complaints.  They might not even be worth going into, because the Leafs opening schedule for the first two weeks is so soft, and besides which, they have already proven everything that can be proved in the regular season, so they have no need to rush.

By putting off these decisions, they very well could come out ahead in the long run.  With that in mind, let’s rip them as if these were life altering catastrophic decisions, instead of a team just maintaining maximum flexibility and being patient in order to make the right move instead of just a move.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Are Perhaps Overthinking It, a Little

It’s nice that the Leafs could get within $4 bucks of the salary cap. It’s impressive that they didn’t have to lose any players, and that they maintain a ton of flexibility w/r/t options for trades, lineups etc.

But at the same, time, this causes problems.

Everyone on the team knows the other shoe has to eventually drop. That can’t be conductive to being a loose team.  It can’t be good for chemistry.

Alex Kerfoot is still here. He’s a great player and the team shouldn’t have to give him away, but with his replacement for the 2LW job is already here, and he makes almost 3 x less money, while the team is about that much over the cap with a full roster.

Jake Muzzin is still here. His replacement – Rasmus Sandin – is already on the roster and makes about 4 x less money.  The Leafs need to find a way to make him waive his no-trade clause because when Liljegren comes back, they have seven defenseman who need to play.  Muzzin is the most expensive, the oldest and worst.  Easy move decision here, but the Leafs seem scared to pressure a guy to waive.

Having over $8 million in salary that can be swapped out by younger, cheaper players is the Toronto Maple Leafs exact strategy, and the strategy for which they are most known for.  It’s weird that they seem hesitant to implement it.  Then again, there is such a thing as “picking your spot” and they likely have to be patient until the stars align.

Bold moves are needed. The Leafs seem to be trying to hoard all their players and maintain flexibility, but at a certain point, the cost of that exceeds the benefit.  I don’t think that has happened yet, but this obviously isn’t the roster that will open the playoffs seven months from now.

Case in point: What are they even doing with the lines they are purported to be using tomorrow night? Last year Kampf/Engvall was pure money.  They put that line out (at least at home) against other team’s best players, and freed up their own stars in the process.  It’s an insane advantage, and they begin the year ignoring it.

Kerfoot is not an ideal centre. He certainly isn’t going to come anywhere close to making up for Kampf’s defense with the slight upgrade he offers offensively.  This is a bad move, but if you ice Kerfoot out on the 4th line, good luck trading him – and so it’s a necessary one, at that.

To start the season with no reserves, with the player who had the best training camp in the minors, and with everyone knowing someone eventually has to get traded seems like a bad idea, but we should remember that the early season is a constant state of flux, and that changes between games right now are inevitable.

The most likely scenario here is that the Leafs are handcuffed from trading expensive players at least until the rosters of the rest of the league are set, and teams know what they have/don’t have.

It really doesn’t matter if Nick Robertson plays the first five or ten games of the season in the NHL if the Leafs gain another asset from developing Denis Malgin into an NHL player.  Liljegren is out for at least another month, which buys them time.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have put off making decisions, but they can’t do that forever.  I think that even though the GM could be seen to have “lame duck” status, it’s an extremely good sign for the future of this franchise that they are being patient here and not rushing into anything, burning bridges or limiting options in any way.