Jake McCabe
Age: 30
Height/Weight: 6;1″, 204 LBS
Contract: $4 million cap-hit, but the Leafs are only responsible for half of that. Contact expires after next season.
Draft: 44th Overall, 2nd Round, 2012 Buffalo Sabres.
Acquired: Trade with the Chicago Blackhawks last season
Role: Top Four left-side defender.
Career Highs: 4 Goals with Chicago in 2021-22. 25 Points last year, split between Chicago and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Last Year’s Scoring: 2 Goals, 20 Points in 55 games with Chicago.
1 Goal, 5 Points in 21 Games with Toronto.
Last Year 5v5 Scoring/ Rate: 16 Points, 1.04 P/60 with Chicago
5 Points 0.86 P/60 with Toronto
On-Ice 5v5 Stats: Chicago: Cori-For 47% ; Shots-For 47%; Scoring-Chances-For 45%
Goals-For 51 % Expected Goals 46%
Toronto Cori-For 52% ; Shots-For 55%; Scoring-Chances-For 55%
Goals-For 71 % Expected Goals 53%
Status: 2nd Pairing left-side defenseman. Mystery Player.
Expectations: Hard to Say.
Notes: On one hand, Jake McCabe is a physical, puck-moving, defensive/offensive hybrid who specializes in clearing the crease. He has demonstrated the ability to post star-level numbers and could easily be a very good second player on a top pairing. His $2 million cap-hit could make him one of the NHL’s most valuable players.
On the other hand, his playoffs were horrendous. It could be that pairing him with TJ Brodie was just too slow of a pairing, but who knows? If he had played well in the playoffs, I think this Leafs blue-line would be viewed in a much better light. This could go either way.