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Toronto Maple Leafs May Need to Rebuild Again Soon

By Stephen Nixon

TORONTO, CANADA - JANUARY 25: Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his game winning goal in overtime against the New York Rangers with teammate Auston Matthews #34 during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on January 25, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Rangers 3-2 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, CANADA - JANUARY 25: Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his game winning goal in overtime against the New York Rangers with teammate Auston Matthews #34 during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on January 25, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Rangers 3-2 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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If the 2023-24 season goes array, the Toronto Maple Leafs may have to go into another rebuild.

As it currently stands, the Toronto Maple Leafs have 12 pending UFA/RFA’s on their roster, so if this season falls apart, there may be huge changes coming.

Recently appointed GM Brad Treliving hasn’t won anything during his career and after evaluating his offseason moves, it’s easy to see why. He added Tyler Bertuzzi for a fair price, which is a great piece, but continued to spend fearlessly on bad contracts such as David Kampf, Ryan Reaves, Max Domi and John Klingberg.

Of the players who are signed long-term right now, Kampf and Reaves are two of them.

No disrespect to them, as they both play their styles at an elite level, but we’re talking about elite fourth-liners. Both of them should be making a combined $2M, yet they’re locked up for a combined $3.45M for the next three years.

I know that $3.45M isn’t a ton but you need to save money where you can, especially at the bottom of your roster, where it doesn’t make a difference. There’s a small chance that Reaves will ever be playing a playoff game for this roster, while Kampf will be playing 12 minutes per night, most effectively on the penalty-kill.

You could be saving probably $1.5M on those spots and you wouldn’t notice a difference if there were two current Toronto Marlies playing their role.

Toronto Maple Leafs Could Be Set For Another Rebuild

The roster is talented enough, thanks to Kyle Dubas, to compete during the regular season and should easily make the playoffs, but crazier things have happened. Nothing is guaranteed and an injury to Ilya Samsonov could change the entire landscape of the season.

Since Auston Matthews and William Nylander aren’t signed yet, we can’t assume that they’re going to be with the team long-term. In fact, based on the salary-cap, it’s hard to believe that they will be able to afford both of them.

If Matthews doesn’t re-sign this offseason and then the team tanks, why would he stay? What does a kid from Scottsdale, Arizona owe the city of Toronto? He’s done everything he’s can to win with this organization, but if the rest of the team can’t pull their weight, then maybe he walks in free agency.

Similar to Nylander, it feels like he’s going to walk regardless, so all of a sudden, we could be stuck with only Mitch Marner and John Tavares.

Tavares and Marner both only have one-year left on their deal, so who’s to say they both wouldn’t want to walk if they can’t win in Toronto next year. They’re been trying for almost a decade, so at some point, they may think it’s better to play somewhere else and get out of the Toronto spotlight.

Everything mentioned is obviously filled with hypotheticals, but now that Dubas is no longer the man running the show, everything is on the table. We’ve yet to see Treliving make a huge splash, but instead have just seen him spend money unwisely.

Next. Have We Forgot About Nick Robertson?. dark

The 2023-24 season is a huge one for not only the current state of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but the future as well.

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