The Toronto Maple Leafs are clearly one of a handful of teams with realistic Stanly Cup asperations this season.
In order to make them come true, the Toronto Maple Leafs should add the best player available.
Who that player is, isn’t up for debate: With apologies to Timo Meier and Jakob Chychrun (two players the Leafs should also look to add if they can) Erik Karlsson is the best player available.
The only thing stopping an all-out bidding war for his services, and in fact the only reason he’s even available, is his hideous contract.
The contract in question has a $11.5 million cap hit for the next four seasons after this one.
However, there are ways around that if you’re willing to pay. The price would be exorbitant, but let’s just assume it can be done and talk about the fit of the player on the team.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Erik Karlsson
It’s hard to imagine a better fit for the high-flying Leafs than the NHL’s best puck-moving defenseman, and best defenseman overall.
Erik Karlsson is going to win to win his 3rd career Norris this year, and he seems to have recovered from the ankle problems that were bugging him the last couple of seasons.
Karlsson currently leads all NHL players in scoring 5v5. The scoring title may include power-play points, but it’s far more valuable to lead the NHL in 5v5 scoring than overall scoring.
Imagine how he scores once he plays with Matthews and Marner, and not on one of the NHL’s worst teams.
Erik Karlsson has a 56% Expected Goals Rating on one of the worst teams in hockey. That is higher than the total Expected Goals Ratings of all but one NHL team (Carolina). That means that when EK takes the ice, he essentially turns the Sharks into the NHL’s 2nd best team.
So what if you added that to what was already one of the best teams?
Karlsson tilts the ice in his direction, despite being fairly bad defensively. It has never mattered, because you play far less defense when he’s on the ice. Hockey is a holistic game where separating offense and defense just gives you wacky ideas that don’t make any sense.
The combined offense and defense of Erik Karlsson makes him the best defenseman in the NHL right now. You could add the best defensive defenseman in the world to the Leafs roster, but adding Erik Karlsson would improve their actual defense more. That is because he makes it so you play less defense. I can never figure out why so many NHL fans fail to understand this basic concept.
Some people think the Toronto Maple Leafs should be looking for grinders, physical players or defensive players. In my opinion, those people don’t know what they are talking about. There is no greater addition than adding the best defenseman in the NHL.
He compliments what they already have better than anyone else would or could. He would be the single greatest player to ever change teams at the trade deadline, because even Ray Bourque and Marian Hossa weren’t going to win awards in the year they were moved. (stats from Naturalstattrick.com).
Erik Karlsson could join the Leafs, win the Cup, then become the first defenseman in team history to win a Norris Trophy. It would be a technicality, since he would have earned it mostly with San Jose, but we’d take it without complaint!
The contract might make it impossible, or other teams might be willing to pay more. That doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t a player alive who would be a better fit for the Toronto Maple Leafs could add right now.