5 Toronto Maple Leafs That Have Been Major Disappointments

5 Toronto Maple Leafs That Have Been a Major Disappointment So Far This Season

Tyler Bertuzzi

When the Leafs brought in Tyler Bertuzzi this past offseason, many had him penciled in as the most suitable replacement for Michael Bunting on the Leafs top line with Matthews and Mitch Marner.

After all, his gritty style of play and ruthless forechecking fits perfectly with the nifty passing of Marner and the lethal scoring ability of Matthews.

In addition, along with being a target acquisition for the team in the past, the tremendous offensive impact he had with the Boston Bruins during the playoffs most likely convinced the Leafs in making their decision to sign him.

However, 12 games into the season now, we have seen Bertuzzi fall from his top line duties down to the second line, along with suffering a power outage in his ability to help the team generate any kind of offence. As a matter of fact, he has probably provided more negative value overall with his turnovers and penalties, compared to his offensive contributions.

On the season, Bertuzzi has only two goals, both coming on the power play, along with one assist for three points.

More worrisome was the fact he has taken six minor penalties already, with many of the careless type. In addition, he has also committed nine turnovers, with many leading directly to a scoring chance by the opposition.

His careless, lacklustre style of play has even earned him some time on the bench in recent games.

This is not what the Leafs were expecting when they signed him and will certainly need him to turn his game around soon before he gets further demoted to the bottom-six.

Max Domi

Another one of the Leafs offseason signings, Max Domi was thought to be a significant upgrade over the departed Alexander Kerfoot in terms of offence.

After all, he once posted a 72-point season with the Montreal Canadiens back in the 2018-19 season.

Now that he was joining the offensive juggernaut in the Maple Leafs, he was expected to have a breakthrough season offensively in 2023-24.

However, other than a standout game in which he set up rookie Matthew Knies for two key goals against the Tampa Bay Lightning over two weeks ago, Domi has been anything but in his current tenure with the Leafs.

Almost appearing negligible on the ice on many nights, Domi has accumulated only five assists through 12 games so far this season.

To make matters worse, he wasn’t going to provide much value defensively as that was previously known, but he has also taken eight penalties already, putting his team in a bind quite often as a result.

One would have thought bringing Domi to town where his dad previously made a name for himself would inspire the motivation and confidence in him to perform well for the Leafs.

However, that spark and fire in his eyes has been totally lacking from his play thus far. Hopefully, he will be able to get things going soon, or else the Leafs could be in for a long season with secondary scoring becoming harder by the day.

Ryan Reaves

Brought in during the offseason to help provide some protection of the Leafs star players, along with adding some sandpaper and grit in the lineup, Ryan Reaves unfortunately has been a failed experiment so far this season.

He wasn’t going to get any big time minutes from the start, but it was expected that his presence on the ice would at least give the Leafs the intimidation factor to keep their opponents on their toes all the time.

However, not only has the opposition stayed on their toes, they have taken full advantage whenever Reaves and his fourth line was on the ice to capitalize on the scoreboard. Reaves and his line has been totally dominated so far this season, putting the Leafs in the extreme negative whenever he took the ice.

More importantly, he would end up flopping the one job that he could not go wrong in doing in being the enforcer for the team. In a recent game when the Bruins’ Brad Marchand injured defenseman Timothy Liljegren on a play, Reaves failed to respond to the incident by giving some push back to the opposition that they can’t mess around with the Leafs.

As a result, Reaves is beginning to turn out worse than his predecessors in Wayne Simmonds and Matt Martin.

For those two, at least they provided some value offensively, while at the same time, they kept the opponents in check whenever they started playing aggressively against the Leafs.

Reaves probably shouldn’t play anymore, and the fact that he was signed for three years is becoming a major embarrassment to the organization and new GM.

John Klingberg

John Klingberg was signed this past offseason to help upgrade the offensive potential of the Leafs from the back end.

That was because last season, the Leafs were among the lower third in the league with points by defensemen with only 166, with the Colorado Avalanche leading the league with 220.

In doing so, Klingberg was quickly given the reigns of the first power play unit, taking over from Morgan Rielly in the role.

Other than his first two games of the season in which he tallied three assists, he has only managed to hit the scoreboard in two others games and have been held pointless in his last six games.

At the same time, defense has also been a weakness for him in the past, and has remained so this season as often the Leafs got hemmed in their zone whenever Klingberg was on the ice. (All stats from hockeyreference.com)

The trade-off you get when obtaining an offensive defenseman was the fact that you hope the player’s offence can make up for the lapses on defense.

But if they are no longer producing much offence and at the same time, get dominated defensively, then they are providing negative value for the team, which is the case currently happening for Klingberg.

He will definitely need to step up his game, especially now that the Leafs have a pair of their defenseman injured, before the entire team’s defensive structure begins to collapse.

Ilya Samsonov

For Ilya Samsonov, he was expected to be the Toronto Maple Leafs number-one netminder for the 2023-24 season after leading the team past the first round of the NHL playoffs for the first time in two decades.

Not only that, he also posted impressive numbers last season with a 27-10-5 record along with a 2.33 GAA and .919 save percentage.

However, it has been nothing short of a total disaster for Samsonov so far this season. Aside from a strong start against the division leading Boston Bruins last week, Samsonov has been a shell of his former self with respect to his overall performance.

In seven games, he has a bloated 4.11 GAA and a mediocre .855 save percentage, including being pulled in two of his starts. Somehow, he was lucky enough to still hold a 2-1-2 record for the season, thanks to some timely offence by the Leafs.

At the same time, rookie Joseph Woll has done a solid job so far for the Leafs in helping to keep them on track, and appears to be starting to steal the net from Samsonov.

However, Woll has never made more than 32 starts in his professional hockey career, so the Leafs cannot risk counting on him to carry a heavy load during the season, or else he may burn out by the end of the year.

As a result, Samsonov will need to turn his game around soon to reform the two-headed monster that was expected entering the season. Otherwise, the Leafs may need to look elsewhere to resolve the issue in the near future.

Overall, the scariest part of it all is the fact that among the five players listed, it appears that all four key offseason signings have not been working out so far for the Leafs, and that could spell trouble for the team if things aren’t rectified soon.