Hockey is right around the corner. Before we know it, the summer weather will be gone and the Toronto Maple Leafs will be going through drills at training camp in Etobicoke. But before that, there is one thing the team needs to do.
With the Leafs locking up winger Nick Robertson for one more season before he hits restricted free agency again and likely another arbitration is scheduled, there is a slight logjam among forwards with the NHL club.
As it stands right now, it seems that the Leafs have 14 forwards on their roster. Obviously, that is two more than can be on the ice and just one more than a typical team holds through the season. Even with the added cap space, it would make almost no sense for Toronto to hold two extra forwards on its roster and have them wasting away up in the press box, hoping to just get a taste of some game time soon.
The Leafs already got rid of Ryan Reaves to make the burden slightly easier, but there is still an abundance of forwards – and specifically those who project to be in the Leafs’ bottom six – right now.
With that being said, the Leafs need to figure it out before training camp takes place and they could face a slightly rushed decision to clear up some room.
Leafs need to make trade before training camp
The reason they need to make the trade is obvious. There is a congestion of bottom-six forwards on this team. Nicolas Roy, Scott Laughton, Steven Lorentz, Bobby McMann, Dakota Joshua, Calle Jarnkrok, and David Kampf, are all forwards who shouldn’t play above the third line on a contending team. Throw in Nick Robertson as someone likely to play in the bottom six as well, if he isn’t given a test run next to John Tavares or Auston Matthews, and it is just too much.
Even Max Domi and Matias Maccelli could see time on a third line this season. There’s just too many forwards.
But the timing is important. Sure, the Leafs could use training camp as a way to see which of these forwards are up for the task. Maybe Jarnkrok comes in and shocks the Toronto coaching staff so much that he rescues his job and the Leafs need to send Kampf packing. Or maybe those two veteran forwards show just enough to stay in Toronto and Nick Robertson is sent out for pennies on the dollar off to the rebuilding Pittsburgh Penguins or Chicago Blackhawks. Or Bobby McMann keeps his bad streak from the playoffs and he’s a candidate to either get placed on waivers or tossed aside to some other team.
Those are things that the Leafs could be hoping for and to make their decision easier. But while the decision on which player isn’t good enough to stick, the other 31 teams will be doing the same thing at their training camps. Why would they make a mid-camp trade to acquire someone not good enough for the Leafs when they could be dealing with their own logjam? Why add someone completely new into their own equation unless David Kampf is miles better than whoever they have projected as their fourth-line centre.
That’s why it needs to happen before teams report to camp. Move the player and let them start training camp with their new team from the start and not have them play catch-up.
No matter which player it is, that’s the one thing the Leafs need to do before the players arrive from all over the world to the ice at the Ford Performance Centre.