Toronto Maple Leafs Say Goodbye to An Extremely Underrated Justin Holl

The Toronto Maple Leafs were correct not to re-sign Justin Holl, as it was time for him to move on after being a healthy-scratch in the playoffs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will also miss Justin Holl and haven’t done a very good job of replacing him.

Both things can be true.

Both things are indisputably true.

Toronto Maple Leafs Say Goodbye to An Extremely Underrated Justin Holl

Despite the fact that Justin Holl started to get the Larry Murphy/Jake Gardiner treatment from Leafs Fans near the end of his time here, he was an excellent player for them for years.

Over the last four years, the Toronto Maple Leafs were one of the NHL’s best teams.

In 2019, they were one of the NHL’s best teams once they fired Mike Babock, and they finished the year 13th overall.

In 2021 they finished sixth overall.

In 2022 and 2023 the Toronto Maple Leafs finished 4th both years.

Sheldon Keefe has coached the Leafs for 267 games and has a points-percentage of  .678, which is the all-time highest for anyone whose coached over 209 games, and second to Tom Johnson overall.

Justin Holl has played in 272 games for the Leafs over the same span.  (stats naturalstattrick.com).

That means with Justin Holl playing top-four minutes (which he did for the vast majority of those games) the Leafs were able to have their coach put up the highest winning percentage in NHL history.

So just based on that, he can’t be all that bad now can he?

Over the last four seasons, when Holl was on the ice, the Toronto Maple Leafs won his minutes in every single year.  His overall 5v5 goal differential was + 21 while his Expected Goals rating was above 50% every single years.

This isn’t to say that Justin Holl was a great player or even that he was a star.

He was an all-right player who came to work every night and did his job.  He wasn’t exciting, and he didn’t really provide any offense.

He wasn’t anything more than a 4th defenseman, but every team needs guys like this and Holl came through.

One of the top teams in the NHL over a four year span deployed him at the top of their lineup and consistently won his minutes.

That means he is indisputably a good player.

Now, obviously the Leafs are great team and it’s not like Holl is solely responsible for the Leafs success.  But every team needs to deploy non-star players and they don’t always win their minutes.

Holl is easily  replaceable, and while his overall game is significantly better than John Klingberg’s, maybe that is what the Leafs need.

Though I do remember when the Leafs had both Tyson Barrie and Justin Holl, and I remember who Keefe trusted more, so I highly doubt this move works out for the Leafs.

Either way, like it or not, believe it or not, Justin Holl was a solid player for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played super-hard shut-down minutes, and he came out on top.  He’s not a star, and the team was right to refuse to pay him into his 30s.

But pretending that every player who leaves was garbage and every new player the Leafs get is an improvement is just sad.  Holl did a thankless job and he was a warrior.

I salute him.