The Toronto Maple Leafs need to upgrade their left-wing position, but may be able to do it internally.
As much as the Toronto Maple Leafs roster looks the same from last season, it's unfortunately worse, as they're missing their first-line left-winger, Tyler Bertuzzi. Although Bertuzzi didn't score a ton of goals last year, his advanced stats and play driving were increidbly strong and the Leafs are much worse without him.
His start was brual, but he was completely snakebitten. It felt like he had a number of great chances every night, but the puck didn't bounce his way and that's how it goes some years. There's a world where Bertuzzi scores 30 goals last year if things go the right way, but we don't need to look backwards because he's now a member of the Chicago Blackhawks.
As for the Leafs current top-six at the left-wing position, Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann are currently locked in there. Knies had a good rookie season and gelled well as that hard-worker in the corner on every shift beside Auston Matthews, so he should continue to stay there, but who knows what will happen with McMann.
The team re-signed him to a two-year deal after a hot-start that kept him up with the Leafs for the remainder of the year, but we only saw 56 NHL games from him last season. During that tenure last year, he did score 15 goals, but seven of those goals came in a five-game stretch from February 13-21st, so within the other 51 games, he was only able to score eight goals.
McMann seems to find hot-streaks, which pad his stats, so if he goes 10 games without a goal playing in the top-six, I could see him getting summoned to the fourth line or even worse, being sent down to the AHL, again.
As a result, the Leafs need to find left-wing help somewhere, but fortunately for them it could be internally. Here are four internal left-wing options.