5 Toronto Maple Leafs Thoughts for the end of the summer
The end of the Toronto Maple Leafs off-season is nearly upon us with Labour Day Weekend portending the end of the Great NHL News Drought and allowing us to get back to our normal activities.
The end of the Toronto Maple Leafs off-season is nearly upon us with Labour Day Weekend portending the end of the Great NHL News Drought and allowing us to get back to our normal activities.
While it is unclear what the Toronto Maple Leafs may or may not do before the NHL season begins, we do know that they are going to be extremely busy.
The Mitch Marner Situation needs to be resolved. The Nick Robertson Situation also needs to be resolved. Brad Treleving is yet to make a trade in 15 months as the Leafs GM, so he's overdue. The team doesn't currently have a 3rd line centre, the blue-line is very average and could use at least one more upgrade.
So we expect things to happen, we just aren't sure what they will be or when. The Leafs came in 30th in the Athletic's annual ranking of fan confidence in their team's management, which we here at EIL consider to be pretty generous, so we're not expecting great things.
This Leafs team is the weirdest team I've ever seen. On one hand, a team with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Willian Nylander, Chris Tanev, Morgan Rielly, Max Domi and Easton Cowan and Matthews Kniews coming up behind them sounds amazing.
If Chris Tanev is elite, no one declines too much, the stars all repeat their best seasons, and mostly, if Joseph Woll becomes a top NHL goalie, then this team will dominate and have a chance to win the Stanley Cup.
The only problem is that that needs about 35 best-case-scenario situations to occur simultaneously. This could be the best team we've seen the Leafs ice in a 25 years or a total trainwreck. It could go either way.
So with that said, here are 3 thoughts for the End of the Summer!
3 Toronto Maple Leafs Thoughts for the end of the summer
Goalies
Let it be on the record that the Toronto Maple Leafs biggest error was with their goalies.
It is absolutely idiotic to come into a season in which Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are in their primes with two randos in net. The Leafs will go with Joseph Woll, a guy so prone to injury that you can go back to when he was 18 years old in 2016 and see that he hasn't played more than 37 games in one season, even with multiple leagues, playoffs and regular season combined.
A guy who hasn't cracked 40 games played during the ages 18-26 is now the starting goalie for a team hoping to win the Stanley Cup. To back him up, they have the 31 year-old Anthony Stolarz who has also hit 40 games played in a year only once in the last decade.
Sure, it is possible that both guys combine to be the best goalies in hockey. That that is even a possibility shows how unpredictable goalies in the NHL are.
But then again, they aren't that unpredicted. The odds that you could just take two random goalies and have an Ullmark/Swayman situation on your hands are extremely long. I mean, just tell me the last time that happened to anyone but Boston?
The smartest thing the Leafs could have done is use every asset at their disposable to acquire a top-of-the-NHL goalie like the formerly available Jusse Saros. The Predators found out that no one would pay top dollar for an established goalie, so they traded their top prospect instead. Good move on their part to stick with the known quantity, but a huge lost opportunity for the Leafs.
Pairing Auston Matthews with one of the best goalies alive is a no-brainer and the kind of thing that is so basic you shouldn't be able to screw it up. So far, the Leafs have done nothing but screw it up.
Taking on a pair of random goalies who are cheap in the hopes of lucking into a Stanley Cup is the dumbest possible strategy. No one is too mad about it now because the off-season breeds hope, but it's a risky move and the team will regret not landing Saros, or going hard after Sorokin, Binnington, or even John Gibson.
4. Defense
The Blue-Line is so average and lacks a high-end option. Creative management would have at least tried to fix this, but instead they have four years to Oliver Ekman-Larsson, which I think is easily the dumbest thing anyone did this off-season.
The Leafs are going to need to get lucky with one of their prospects, or their blue-line is going to be a disaster.
To sum up: the blue-line has no high-end option, it is old, injury prone and only average to below average at moving the puck. The group as a whole lacks upside, and Brendan Shanahan staking an entire decade of work on the 34 year old Chris Tanev is.....at best........a weird bet.
Check out our in-depth full-scale exploration and analysis of the Toronto Maple Leafs Blue-Line.
3 Adding More Players
Every day it's:
"Is Nick Jenson available?"
"Can we get a washed up JVR?"
"What about Nick Cousins?"
"Who should the Leafs get for a PTO?"
Honestly, I'm so sick of every random name being attached to this hockey team. The Leafs don't need to add any more players, unless those players are stars. If they can add a star player in a trade, they should do so.
No offense to your childhood hero, but this team needs JVR back like they need Brad Treliving to pop out of hibernation and see his own shadow.
Otherwise, they should relax. They should try to see if any of their prospects can make a name for themselves and provide some cheap roster upgrades. The Toronto Maple Leafs are a guaranteed playoff lock. Few other teams in the NHL have a higher floor than the Leafs. There is no need to fill out every possible roster spot in the next few weeks.
Sure, if a team calls you up and offers you a star player that will improve your team, you make the deal. But the Leafs need to leave room for Matthew Kniews to climb up to the first line. They need to make sure that Easton Cowan, Roni Hirvonen, Alex Steeves and Fraser Minten can be on the team if they earn it.
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But most of all, they need to find out if Topi Niemela is an NHL player. If he can crack the blue-line and force the team to give him minutes, that means less Simon Benoit and less Jake McCabe. That can only be a good thing.