The Toronto Maple Leafs should look at parting ways with Bobby McMann before the 2025-26 season begins.
If you were to look at stats alone, you'd see that Bobby McMann only makes $1.35 million and was a 20-goal scorer last year. That's insane value for someone who makes such little money, but those 20 goals don't tell the true story.
As much as I can understand why keeping McMann makes a ton of sense as you can say that you have a 20-goal scorer on your third or fourth line, I don't think it makes sense in Toronto. It's the same reason why the team eventually moved on from Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen and Connor Brown. Despite all three being "20-goal players" their game didn't quite fit the type of player you want on their third line, and the likes of Scott Laughton, Dakota Joshua, Steven Lorentz and Nic Roy seemingly fit that better.
Instead of keeping McMann on the third or fourth line as depth, I feel like they would be better suited at trading him to acquire an asset, as I'm sure there's a team out there that would want him in their top-six. At 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, the 20-goal scorer might be valued higher than you'd think across the league.
The biggest issue I had with McMann's season last year is the inconsistency. As mentioned, in a vacuum, all you see is 20 goals, but those goals were streaky. The Leafs last game happened on May 18th, yet McMann's last goal he scored took place on March 25th. McMann didn't score a goal for the last 24 games of the season (including playoffs), which is where you need these type of depth players to show up.
Leafs should part ways with McMann
If you compare McMann to someone like Nick Robertson, McMann averaged 2:30 TOI more than Robertson last year, played in five more games, yet only scored five more goals. Not only that, but Robertson only got to play in three playoff games last year, yet he actually scored in one of them.
McMann was given much more ice-time and a better opportunity with better players, but barely contributed more goals. However, we somehow view McMann as this incredible value and we look at Robertson as a bust. The funniest part about this whole thing is that McMann is five years older than Robertson and when McMann was Robertson's age, he was playing in the ECHL, yet Robertson already has 156 NHL games unders his belt.
It's crazy how much a player's draft position dictates how their career is supposed to pan out when you should just be viewing those players as they currently are, instead of what their past projected them as. As a result, this is why people aren't valuing Robertson as important right now. Since McMann went undrafted, he's viewed as a diamond in the rough, but since Robertson was a second-round pick, we all expect him to be a consistent 30 goal scorer by now.
In my opinion, the views on both Robertson and McMann are wrong and the team needs to push McMann away for a draft pick or prospect while they can to help set Robertson up for success.